scholarly journals Comparing the web and mobile platforms of a social Q&A service from the user’s perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyu Chen ◽  
Alton Y.K. Chua ◽  
Shengli Deng
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Information Service ◽  
Theoretical Aspect ◽  
Practical Aspect ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Mobile Users ◽  
Mobile Platforms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Web

Purpose As an increasing number of users have acquired information across the web and mobile platforms for social question and answering (Q&A), it is of interest to explore whether there are differences in social Q&A usages between the two platforms. The purpose of this paper is to compare web and mobile platforms of a social Q&A service from the user’s perspective in terms of three dimensions, namely, demographics, individual-based constructs, and information-based constructs. Design/methodology/approach Because Zhihu.com is one of the most popular social Q&A sites in China, the authors used online questionnaires to investigate its users’ perceptions of these three dimensions. From January to March 2016, the authors obtained 278 valid responses in total through snowball and convenient sampling. Collected data are analyzed through descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Findings The results indicate that there exist significant differences between web users and mobile users on Zhihu.com in terms of gender, affinity, and information seeking. More specifically, compared to the male users, more female users rely on the mobile platform to access the information service; mobile users perceive higher affinity with Zhihu.com than web users; and mobile users perceive higher information-seeking intention than web users do. Originality/value Regarding the theoretical aspect, this study proposes a conceptual framework for comparison between the web and mobile platforms of social Q&A from the user’s perspective. Regarding the practical aspect, the comparative results of this study could give social Q&A service providers useful information about users’ differences between web and mobile platforms of social Q&A services.

scholarly journals Exploring the behavioral drivers of review valence

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 3083-3099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Stamolampros ◽  
Nikolaos Korfiatis
Keyword(s):  
Information Content ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
The Other ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Bag Of Words ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Ratings ◽  
Positive Direct

Purpose Although the literature has established the effect of online reviews on customer purchase intentions, the influence of psychological factors on online ratings is overlooked. This paper aims to examine these factors under the perspective of construal level theory (CLT). Design/methodology/approach Using review data from TripAdvisor and Booking.com, the authors study three dimensions of psychological distances (temporal, spatial and social) and their direct and interaction effects on review valence, using regression analysis. The authors examine the effect of these distances on the information content of online reviews using a novel bag-of-words model to assess its concreteness. Findings Temporal distance and spatial distance have positive direct effects on review valence. Social distance, on the other hand, has a negative direct effect. However, its interaction with the other two distances has a positive effect, suggesting that consumers tend to “zoom-out” to less concrete things in their ratings. Practical implications The findings provide implications for the interpretation of review ratings by the service providers and their information content. Originality/value This study extends the CLT and electronic word-of-mouth literature by jointly exploring the effect of all three psychological distances that are applicable in post-purchase evaluations. Methodologically, it provides a novel application of the bag-of-words model in evaluating the concreteness of online reviews.

Exploring the nexus of social media influencers and consumer brand engagement

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Man Lai Cheung ◽  
Wilson K.S. Leung ◽  
Morgan X. Yang ◽  
Kian Yeik Koay ◽  
Man Kit Chang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Motivational Factors ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Consumer Engagement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact

PurposeGrounded in uses and gratification theory (UGT) and observational learning theory (OLT), this study aims to understand the impact of motivational factors on consumer-influencer engagement behaviors (CIEBs). Motivating factors, including entertainment, information seeking, reward and social interaction, are regarded as antecedents of consumers' OLT, as manifested by CIEB dimensions, including consumption, contribution and creation, and subsequently drive consumer engagement with the endorsed brands.Design/methodology/approachA self-administered questionnaire was distributed to Malaysian social media users. A total of 263 responses were collected and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the impact of motivational factors on CIEBs.FindingsThe results show that the three dimensions of CIEBs can be predicted by different gratifications (information seeking, entertainment, reward and interaction). In addition, two of the CIEB dimensions, consumption and contribution, were found to have a significant positive influence on consumers' engagement with endorsed brands.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights into how social media influencers (SMIs) could lead to CIEBs by creating entertaining and rewarding content that facilitates social interaction between consumers. SMIs and marketers that encourage consumers to browse, comment and share SMI-created posts will enhance consumer engagement with the endorsed brands, as engagement is driven by the consumption and contribution to SMI-created content.Originality/valueSMI marketing is increasing, and many brands are beginning to rely more on SMIs to promote brands. Yet, there is a dearth of studies that have examined how SMIs play a role in affecting consumers' engagement with endorsed brands. This study contributes to the marketing literature by developing and empirically testing the research model. Results suggest that social interaction, reward and entertainment are key motivational factors that drive CIEBs, which, in turn, foster consumer engagement with endorsed brands.

The User as a Service

2012 ◽  
pp. 37-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
José C. Delgado
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Information Service ◽  
User Model ◽  
Collaboration Networks ◽  
Web Access ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
Active Services ◽  
Information Consumers ◽  
The Web

The Web has changed a lot since its inception, 20 years ago, now offering dynamic information and services. The users have also evolved and are no longer mere information consumers, but rather active producers. This calls for a paradigm shift, with the user at the center of the information, service, and collaboration networks, taking the role of active services (able to respond to requests), in equal terms with current service providers. This leads to a unified user model, in which both individual and institutional entities are users and providers, although with different emphasis. To support this approach, the authors present a new Web access device, the browserver, which includes a browser and a server working in close cooperation, with the goal of replacing the classical browser but being backwards compatible with it to ease the migration path. The authors show how it can be implemented and its advantages in the case of typical applications.

Social network fatigue affecting continuance intention of social networking services

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Zong ◽  
Jing Yang ◽  
Zheshi Bao
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Continuance Intention ◽  
Social Networking Services ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Perceived Enjoyment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how social network fatigue affects continuance intention of social networking services (SNSs) from a more comprehensive perspective. Design/methodology/approach A research model was proposed by integrating uses and gratification theory (UGT), social network fatigue and continuance intention. The relationships between the three dimensions of UGT and continuance intention were examined, as well as the direct and moderating effects of social network fatigue. To collect data, an online survey was adopted, and 227 valid responses were analyzed by structural equation modeling. Findings The empirical findings demonstrate that utilitarian gratification (information seeking), social gratification (social interaction) and hedonic gratification (perceived enjoyment) are positively associated with SNS users’ continuance intention. Meanwhile, social network fatigue can directly and negatively affect continuance intention. Furthermore, the relationships between the two dimensions of UGT (information seeking, perceived enjoyment) and continuance intention are also negatively moderated by social network fatigue. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding about the relationship between continuance intention and social network fatigue. The authors indicate that social network fatigue will not only directly weaken SNS users’ continuance intention, but also negatively influence the formation process of the continuance intention. Some other theoretical and practical implications are also provided.

Smartphones for Law Students – Persuasive, Pervasive and Legal: a Research Study

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 174-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaki Abbas ◽  
Andrew MacFarlane ◽  
Ayşe Göker
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Information Service ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Academic Information ◽  
The Uk ◽  
User Friendly

AbstractSmartphones have quickly become a key part of our daily lives. Over 70 percent of people in the UK own such a device and law students are no exception to this far-reaching trend1. The use of these devices has posed some significant questions on the extent of their impact on information seeking behaviour and in relation to information delivery of resources. Zaki Abbas, Andrew MacFarlane and Ayşe Göker, who have recently begun a research project together, seek to not only examine the information seeking behaviours (ISBs) of law students using their Smartphones for academic information retrieval, but also to investigate perspectives from subject law librarians from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) throughout the UK. There is an impression that students tend to find Smartphones more appealing for their information seeking needs compared to the professional resources and services, such as virtual libraries, which their HEI have already invested in. The result leads to a deep concern from subject librarians that students may be at risk from weakening research skills as well as relying too much on poor information sources not specifically designed to meet their information needs within the academic context5. The authors also suggest that information service providers to be more pro-active in providing information to students through more user-friendly interfaces as well as capitalise on the growing use of the Smartphone as a means to deliver their product4,5,6,15.

A semantic web services discovery approach based on a mobile agent using metadata

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Ben Seghir ◽  
Okba Kazar ◽  
Khaled Rezeg ◽  
Samir Bourekkache
Keyword(s):  
Web Services ◽  
Semantic Web ◽  
Web Service ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
User Profile ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Semantic Web Services ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Web

Purpose The success of web services involved the adoption of this technology by different service providers through the web, which increased the number of web services, as a result making their discovery a tedious task. The UDDI standard has been proposed for web service publication and discovery. However, it lacks sufficient semantic description in the content of web services, which makes it difficult to find and compose suitable web services during the analysis, search, and matching processes. In addition, few works on semantic web services discovery take into account the user’s profile. The purpose of this paper is to optimize the web services discovery by reducing the search space and increasing the number of relevant services. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose a new approach for the semantic web services discovery based on the mobile agent, user profile and metadata catalog. In the approach, each user can be described by a profile which is represented in two dimensions: personal dimension and preferences dimension. The description of web service is based on two levels: metadata catalog and WSDL. Findings First, the semantic web services discovery reduces the number of relevant services through the application of matching algorithm “semantic match”. The result of this first matching restricts the search space at the level of UDDI registry, which allows the users to have good results for the “functional match”. Second, the use of mobile agents as a communication entity reduces the traffic on the network and the quantity of exchanged information. Finally, the integration of user profile in the service discovery process facilitates the expression of the user needs and makes intelligible the selected service. Originality/value To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first attempt at implementing the mobile agent technology with the semantic web service technology.

Ambient E-Service

2011 ◽  
pp. 54-83
Author(s):  
Yuan-Chu Hwang ◽  
Soe-Tsyr Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Peer Group ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Mobile Services ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Mobile Users ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Moment

Most of existing mobile services were designed based on the client/server architecture. Those mobile services neither paid much attention to mobile users’ interactions with their environments nor considered the collective efforts between the mobile users in a dynamic peer group. In this paper, the notion of ambient e-service is so defined as to identify a new scope of mobile e-service, which address dynamic collective efforts between mobile users (enabled by Mobile Peer-to-Peer technology), dynamic interactions with ambient environments (envisioned by Location-based service), the moment of value (empowered by wireless technologies), and low cost service provision. The notable features of ambient e-services are the exhilarated linkage based on social context and significantly rapid growth of connections. We also present an ambient e-service framework that characterizes ambient e-services with three dimensions (value stack, environment stack and technology stack), followed by several exemplars of ambient e-service applications. Moreover, we present the Ambient e-service Embracing Model (ASEM) that addresses the integrated consideration of trust, reputation and privacy required for fostering the growth of ambient e-services and steers the directions of future fruitful relevant research. The embracing model can also guide the government or service providers to implement the ambient e-service applications that satisfy customers’ unique needs under various circumstances. Keywords: mobile commerce, ambient e-service, mobile peer-to-peer, trust/reputation/privacy

Serious information in hedonic social applications: affordances, self-determination and health information adoption in TikTok

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shijie Song ◽  
Yuxiang Chris Zhao ◽  
Xinlin Yao ◽  
Zhichao Ba ◽  
Qinghua Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
Basic Psychological Needs ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Intention To Adopt ◽  
Social Applications ◽  
Information Adoption

PurposeHedonic social applications have been increasingly popular among health information consumers. However, it remains unclear what motivates consumers to adopt health information in hedonic applications when they have alternative choices of more formal health information sources. Building on the self-determination theory and the affordances lens, this study aims to investigate how different affordances on hedonic social applications affect consumers' basic psychological needs and further influence their intention to adopt health information on such applications.Design/methodology/approachAs TikTok demonstrated great potential in disseminating health information, we developed a model that we analyze using the PLS-SEM technique with data collected from a valid research sample of 384 respondents with health information seeking or encountering experience in TikTok.FindingsThe results suggested that health information adoption in hedonic social applications is significantly predicted by the satisfaction of consumers' basic psychological needs, namely autonomy, relatedness and competence. Moreover, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is positively affected by affordances provided by the hedonic social applications. The hedonic affordances positively influence autonomy satisfaction, while the connective affordances positively affect relatedness satisfaction, and the utilitarian affordances positively support competence satisfaction.Originality/valueThe study indicates that hedonic social applications such as TikTok could be an important channel for consumers to access and adopt health information. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a theoretical model that explains consumers' health information adoption and yields practical implications for designers and service providers of hedonic social applications.

An international and comparative study of perceived justice in Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish hospitals

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-264
Author(s):  
Juan C. Sosa Varela ◽  
Irma Magaña ◽  
Carmen Padin ◽  
Carmen Otero-Neira ◽  
Maria de los M. Santos Corrada ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
International Study ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Perceived Justice ◽  
Service Failures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to test a construct of perceived justice and its dimensions in negative service encounters across Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish hospitals. Also to compare similarities and differences of perceived justice in negative service encounters in these countries. Design/methodology/approach – Includes Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Spaniards who have experienced service failures at hospital settings. A descriptive research design was followed and a self-administered questionnaire was applied to gather the data from respondents. The researchers applied convenience sampling, and a pre-screening of respondents was included to verify that respondents were appropriate to participate in the study. A total number of 937 usable questionnaires were obtained from the hospital settings. Findings – The empirical findings across three Spanish-speaking countries indicate that the construct of perceived justice in negative service encounters consists of merely 15 items, divided into three dimensions, namely, distributional, interactional and procedural. Research limitations/implications – The empirical findings provide satisfactory validity and reliability across three countries, but there are acknowledged research limitations. These offer an opportunity for further research to verify or falsify the validity, reliability and generalization of the current findings. Practical implications – Service providers may use the three-dimensional construct of perceived justice as a guide when developing, implementing and managing processes and procedures of service failures in negative service encounters. Originality/value – The current international study in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Spain complements and fortifies previous research and existing theory of perceived justice in negative service encounters, and possible actions of complaint handling as well as service recovery.

Mentoring communities of practice: what’s in it for the mentor?

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eimear Holland
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Action Learning ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Teacher Education Institution

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the critique of researchers, who question the effectiveness and sustainability of mentoring as a continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) process. Where a lack of awareness exists surrounding the potential benefits of mentoring for the mentor, this paper investigates whether engaging in and with mentoring through a mentoring community of practice (M-CoP) assists mentors to accrue and realise the benefits of engagement. A relationship will be drawn between the community of practice (CoP) dimensions as outlined by Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015): domain, practice and community, and the perceived benefits accrued for mentors will be reported. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was taken, using a participatory action learning action research strategy. In total, 12 mentors came together to form a developing M-CoP. They attended four M-CoP workshops where they grew as mentors, through the three dimensions of a CoP: domain, practice and community. Workshops were audio visually recorded and observed. Further data were gathered through an M-CoP questionnaire, pre-workshop questions, M-CoP artefacts, stimulus recall, reflective journals, reflective journey plans and extended focus group discussions. Respondent validation, inter-rater and intra-observer reliability were used. Data were coded manually and using NVivo-10 software. Findings Many of the benefits reported were directly linked to participants’ engagement in and with the three M-CoP dimensions: domain, practice and community. Such benefits related to mentor identity, support and solidarity, engagement and interaction, sharing “for” and learning “from” other mentors, and knowledge expansion and boundary spanning. Participants reported that engaging in and with mentor education through an M-CoP was an effective CPDL process, which was beneficial for them as developing mentors. Research limitations/implications The sample size was limited, based in one country and focussed upon one subject specialism. Such reported benefits need to be disseminated in order to raise the awareness of policy makers, teacher education institution managers and teacher educators, teachers and school leaders of the benefits of engaging in mentoring CPDL through the process of M-CoP engagement. Practical implications The findings from this study can be used to inform policies related to the continuum of teacher education. A recommendation is made for policy makers, teacher education institution managers, school leaders and CPDL service providers to facilitate the development of M-CoPs and to support their growth. It is also suggested that government departments of education and professional standards bodies account for the resourcing of such work in the design and implementation phase of school placement developments. Originality/value This paper closes the following gaps in the literature: CPDL benefits of engaging in and with an M-CoP for the mentor, the relationship between CPDL benefits and CoP dimensions and the development of M-CoPs in the given socio-cultural, historical and economic context of Ireland’s teacher education system and those of similar contexts.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document