What’s in a “Username”? The Effect of Perceived Anonymity on Herding in Crowdfunding

Author(s):  
Yang Jiang ◽  
Yi-Chun (Chad) Ho ◽  
Xiangbin Yan ◽  
Yong Tan

This research investigates whether and how predecessors’ usernames—as evaluated from a perspective of perceived anonymity—affect successors’ herding momentum through the varying extent of perceived source credibility. Using a unique data set collected from a leading debt-based crowdfunding platform, we classify lenders’ usernames as either anonymous or real-seeming, with the latter referring to usernames that seem to reveal one’s legal name. We find that successors demonstrate weaker herding momentum toward predecessors who are presented with real-seeming usernames than anonymous ones. This finding, which we attribute to a lower extent of perceived credibility resulting from a nonconforming behavior, challenges the conventional wisdom that considers anonymity a negative factor for source credibility. Further, we demonstrate the importance of risk-related factors, in that the uncovered positive effect of perceived anonymity on herding is accentuated in the early stage of the fundraising period. Our findings provide actionable insights for platform owners to utilize the user heterogeneity with respect to perceived anonymity and hence perceived credibility in herding. These findings are also informative for borrowers who desire to exert effort to encourage participation from the crowd.

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (9) ◽  
pp. 1364-1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Imhoff ◽  
Pia Lamberty ◽  
Olivier Klein

Classical theories of attitude change point to the positive effect of source expertise on perceived source credibility persuasion, but there is an ongoing societal debate on the increase in anti-elitist sentiments and conspiracy theories regarding the allegedly untrustworthy power elite. In one correlational ( N = 275) and three experimental studies ( N = 195, N = 464, N = 225), we tested the novel idea that people who endorse a conspiratorial mind-set (conspiracy mentality) indeed exhibit markedly different reactions to cues of epistemic authoritativeness than those who do not: Whereas the perceived credibility of powerful sources decreased with the recipients’ conspiracy mentality, that of powerless sources increased independent of and incremental to other biases, such as the need to see the ingroup in particularly positive light. The discussion raises the question whether a certain extent of source-based bias is necessary for the social fabric of a highly complex society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 1044-1064 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Ling Jin ◽  
Zhongyun Zhou ◽  
Xiaoyu Yu

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate why users are willing to diffuse healthcare knowledge in social media by drawing on the communicative ecology theory (CET) and prior research on interpersonal communication. Design/methodology/approach This paper conducts a large-scale scenario-based online survey in WeChat (the most popular social media platform in China) to test the proposed research model and hypotheses. The final data set consists of 1,039 useful responses from WeChat users. Findings The results indicate that interestingness, emotionality and institution-based trust are the strongest antecedents in predicting healthcare knowledge-diffusing likelihood, followed by usefulness, source credibility and positivity. Further, the relationship between institution-based trust and healthcare knowledge-diffusing likelihood is partially mediated by source credibility. Practical implications Healthcare practitioners who seek to motivate individuals to disseminate healthcare knowledge need to phrase or frame healthcare knowledge in a way that draws greater interest, evokes stronger emotion, increases perceived usefulness or reflects positively on themselves. Healthcare organizations should also pay attention to strengthening users’ trust in the platform and source-related information that can indicate source authority. Originality/value This study is one of the first to investigate the dissemination of healthcare knowledge in the context of social media (WeChat in particular). Compared with other types of information, healthcare knowledge is more scientific and professional to the extent that most laypersons do not have relevant expertise to directly evaluate whether the content is credible and of high quality. Rather, their sharing likelihood is dependent more on other factors than perceived information quality and credibility; those factors include platform-related factors that may play an important role but has been overlooked in prior literature on interpersonal communication. By combining CET with interpersonal communication-related research and including institution-based trust as an important determinant of healthcare knowledge dissemination, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of healthcare knowledge diffusion process.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Dewanti Cahyaningsih ◽  
Irwan Trinugroho

We extend the study of Trinugroho et al. (2015) by focusing on the effect of human development on banking development and the moderating effect of the quality of local government on the link between human development and banking development. We use unique data set by disentangling the type of banks (commercial bank, rural bank, and the total of both) to measure financial development. This research uses panel data at the provincial level for the period of 2010-2014. Generally, it could be concluded that human development has positive effect on banking development. To some extent, the quality of local government is found to strengthen the impact of human development on banking development.  


Author(s):  
Ngoc Anh Nguyen

The analysis of a data set of observation for Vietnamese banks in period from 2011 - 2015 shows how Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) is influenced by selected factors: asset of the bank SIZE, loans in total asset LOA, leverage LEV, net interest margin NIM, loans lost reserve LLR, Cash and Precious Metals in total asset LIQ. Results indicate based on data that NIM, LIQ have significant effect on CAR. On the other hand, SIZE and LEV do not appear to have significant effect on CAR. Variables NIM, LIQ have positive effect on CAR, while variables LLR and LOA are negatively related with CAR.


Author(s):  
Varun Sapra ◽  
M.L Saini ◽  
Luxmi Verma

Background: Cardiovascular diseases are increasing at an alarming rate with very high rate of mortality. Coronary artery disease is one of the type of cardiovascular disease, which is not easily diagnosed in its early stage. Prevention of Coronary Artery Disease is possible only if it is diagnosed, at early stage and proper medication is done. Objective: An effective diagnosis model is important not only for the early diagnosis but also to check the severity of the disease. Method: In this paper, a hybrid approach is followed, with the integration of deep learning (multi-layer perceptron) with Case based reasoning to design analytical framework. This paper suggests two phases of the study, one in which the patient is diagnosed for Coronary artery disease and in second phase, if the patient is suffering from the disease then employing Case based reasoning to diagnose the severity of the disease. In the first phase, multilayer perceptron is implemented on reduced dataset and with time-based learning for stochastic gradient descent respectively. Results: The classification accuracy is increase by 4.18 % with reduced data set using deep neural network with time based learning. In second phase, if the patient is diagnosed as positive for Coronary artery disease, then it triggers the Case based reasoning system to retrieve from the case base, the most similar case to predict the severity for that patient. The CBR model achieved 97.3% accuracy. Conclusion: The model can be very useful for medical practitioners as a supporting decision system and thus can save the patients from unnecessary medical expenses on costly tests and can improve the quality and effectiveness of medical treatment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Berg ◽  
M. Shahe Emran

AbstractThis paper uses a unique data set on 143,000 poor households from Northern Bangladesh to analyze the effects of microfinance membership on a household’s ability to cope with seasonal famine known as Monga. We develop an identification and estimation strategy that exploits a jump and a kink at the 10-decimal land ownership-threshold driven by the Microfinance Institution screening process to ensure repayment by excluding the ultra-poor. Evidence shows that microfinance membership improves food security during Monga, especially for the poorest households who survive at the margin of one and two meals a day. The positive effects on food security are, however, not driven by higher income, as microcredit does not improve the ability to migrate for work, nor does it reduce dependence on distress sale of labor. The evidence is consistent with consumption smoothing being the primary mechanism behind the gains in food security of MFI households during the season of starvation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Berg ◽  
M. Shahe Emran

AbstractThis paper uses a unique data set on 143,000 poor households from Northern Bangladesh to analyze the effects of microfinance membership on a household's ability to cope with seasonal famine known as Monga. We develop an identification and estimation strategy that exploits a jump and a kink at the 10 decimal land ownership-threshold driven by the Microfinance Institution (MFI) screening process to ensure repayment by excluding the ultra-poor. Evidence shows that microfinance membership improves food security during Monga, especially for the poorest households who survive at the margin of one and two meals a day. The positive effects on food security are, however, not driven by higher income, as microcredit does not improve the ability to migrate for work, nor does it reduce dependence on distress sale of labor. The evidence is consistent with consumption smoothing being the primary mechanism behind the gains in food security of MFI households during the season of starvation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 49-49
Author(s):  
Euridice R. Irving ◽  
Dennis R. A. Mans ◽  
Els Th. M. Dams ◽  
Maureen Y. Lichtveld

PURPOSE Delays across the entire cancer care continuum are not uncommon. This cross-sectional study explored the health care trajectories of Surinamese women with breast cancer and identified predictors of timely diagnosis and treatment initiation. METHODS One hundred women age 30 years or older who were newly diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 to 2018 were recruited from all 4 hospitals in Paramaribo. Data on their demographics, lifestyle, reproductive and medical history, health status, and family history of breast cancer and other malignancies were collected using a validated semistructured questionnaire. Using Anderson’s Model of Pathways to Treatment, we defined a patient interval (from detection to first consultation), diagnostic interval (from consultation to histopathologic diagnosis), and treatment interval (from diagnosis to first treatment). Log-transformed data were analyzed using linear regression, and variables with P ≤ .05 were considered statistically significant predictors of intervals. RESULTS All participants had health insurance and access to health care. Eighty-five percent of patients presented with early-stage disease. Ninety percent of patients had self-detected their disease, with 70% finding a lump. Average age was 55.6 years (± 11.8 years). Median durations of patient, diagnostic, and treatment intervals were 13 days (interquartile, range, 4-63 days), 40 days (IQR, 21-57 days), and 18 days (IQR, 8-38 days), respectively. Median duration of the entire interval was 95 days (IQR, 59-272 days). Patient-related factors associated with the intervals were religion (β = −530; P = .003), being employed (β = 149.4; P = .007), and age 50 years and older (β = −195.8; P = .037). Disease-related factors were lump as first symptom (β = −175.6; P = .038) and late-stage disease at diagnosis (β = 213.5; P = .004). CONCLUSION Given the limited-resource setting, delays in Suriname’s health care can be minimized by programs aimed at increasing breast cancer awareness and education; however, delays may have been underestimated as a result of the over-representation of early-stage disease and recall bias regarding the first symptom detected.


2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882090802
Author(s):  
Sejin Koo

Studies of party activism highlight that party activists are driven by various motivations and that these affect their level of activism. However, it remains unclear whether policy-motivated activists are more engaged in party activities than those motivated by other incentives and whether the motivation–activism link varies with party characteristics. This article investigates these questions by focusing on political actors linking parties and voters in the local community. I use a party activist survey data set collected during recent national election campaigns in three Asian young democracies: Taiwan, Korea, and Mongolia. The results demonstrated the prominence of policy motivation as an impetus for activists’ intraparty commitment. I also found that the positive effect of policy motivation is especially robust in small parties, while it is muted in large parties and that party membership increases the probability of intraparty commitment, challenging the widely held belief that formal membership is pointless in Asian parties.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 721-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Essmat Shouman ◽  
Nahla Fawzy Abou El Ezz ◽  
Nivine Gado ◽  
Amal Mahmoud Ibrahim Goda

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to measure health-related quality of life (QOL) among patients with early stage cancer breast under curative treatment at department of oncology and nuclear medicine at Ain Shams University Hospitals. Identify factors affecting QOL among these patients. Design/methodology/approach – A cross-sectional study measured QOL among early stage female breast cancer (BC) patients and determined the main factors affecting their QOL. Three interviewer administered questionnaires were used. Findings – The physical domain mostly affected in BC patients and the functional domain least. Socio-demographic factors that significantly affected BC patients QOL scores were patient age, education, having children and family income. Specific patient characteristics include caregiver presence – a factor that affected different QOL scores. Age at diagnosis, affection in the side of the predominant hand, post-operative chemotherapy and difficulty in obtaining the medication were the disease-related factors that affected QOL scores. Originality/value – The final model predicting QOL for early stage female BC patients included age, education and difficulty in obtaining the medication as determinants for total QOL score. Carer presence was the specific patient characteristic that affected different QOL scores.


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