MFS usage intention during COVID-19 and beyond: an integration of health belief and expectation confirmation model

Purpose The usage rate of mobile financial services (MFS) has shown an uptick since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. This study aims to reveal the underpinning reasons for such MFS surge and its continuance by integrating health belief model (HBM) and expectation confirmation model (ECM).Design/methodology/approach The study analyzes 529 MFS users' responses during the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh using the partial least square method.Findings Satisfaction is more predictive than perceived usefulness in explaining continuance usage intention. Expectation confirmation also indirectly affects continuance intention. Among the HBM constructs, the indirect effect of perceived severity on continuance intention via perceived usefulness and satisfaction is significant. Besides, the impact of self-efficacy on continuance intention is also significant. Moreover, perceived credibility significantly affects satisfaction and indirectly affected continuance usage intention via satisfaction.Practical implications The study projects boosting customers' satisfaction is critical for the successful retention of existing MFS customers. MFS service providers should emphasize the factors that amplify satisfaction. They must evaluate preadoption factors so that customers can have positive confirmation. Especially, the service providers, the policymakers and the regulators should take an active role in improving the users' self-efficacy and the system's credibility. Undertaking the MFS literacy program, installing hotline service to provide emergency help will boost users' confidence in using the system.Originality/value The study is a unique contribution in the context of Bangladesh. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous MFS studies in Bangladesh explored MFS continuance usage intention during COVID-19 and beyond. Besides, the inclusion of “perceived credibility” in the framework will supplement the earlier studies conducted on this aspect.

Promoting Sustainable Lifestyle Habits: “Real Food” and Social Media in Spain

Obesity and state of being overweight are beginning to be treated as global epidemics. In this context, health professionals are increasingly acting as expert opinion leaders that use social media to connect with the public, in order to promote healthy lifestyles and provide specific recommendations for different product categories, including fresh, processed, and ultra-processed meat products. This study investigates how exposure to content created by health professionals, and posted on social media, influences consumers’ attitudes. For this purpose, the collaboration of one relevant nutritionist influencer in Spain has been obtained. The online survey created has provided 4.584 responses, received from followers (from May to June 2019). After applying a partial least squares path modeling approach, the results suggest that trust in the content shared, the perceived credibility of the professional sharing the information and the informative value, determine the strength with which consumers acquire more knowledge about endorsed products, develop a favorable predisposition towards them, prefer them over their options, and modify their behaviour by purchasing them, instead of their usual foods. The link is stronger, in the case of trust and influencer’s credibility, than for informative value. However, the latter has an indirect effect on the attitude phases through the former.

The more, the better? Effects of transparency tools and moderators on the perceived credibility of news articles

Transparency is often discussed as a way to increase the public’s perception of journalism. While its adoption by newsrooms is relatively well studied, only a few studies have investigated its effects on news users’ credibility judgments. We build on research about transparency effects and report the results of two online experiments (total N = 2262), one with a local and one with a national newspaper frame. Our results suggest that transparency does not affect the perceived message and source credibility newspaper articles and that moderating factors such as cognitive involvement and media skepticism are more important predictors of credibility assessments.

CEO beauty and management guidance

PurposeThe authors study whether CEO beauty influences management guidance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors calculate an attractiveness score based on facial symmetry and perform regression analyses to examine the relation between CEO beauty and management guidance.FindingsThe authors find that attractive CEOs are more likely to issue voluntary management earnings guidance. After controlling for this appearance-based self-selection, the authors document that management forecasts provided by attractive CEOs are more optimistic yet less precise. Consistent with this result, the authors find that analysts' consensus forecast error following management forecasts made by attractive CEOs is larger than such error following management forecasts made by unattractive CEOs. The authors further find that the perceived credibility of management forecasts by attractive CEOs is not different from that by unattractive CEOs.Originality/valueThese findings suggest that attractive CEOs are more active but less skillful in issuing management forecasts. This adds to the emerging accounting literature on the relation between facial appearance and information delivery.

Public Opinion About #MeToo Victims and Offenders: A Nationwide Experiment

During the #MeToo movement, many sexual assault survivors are discredited because of their delay in disclosure or failure to report to the police. The current study investigates which factors influence public opinion towards sexual assault victims and offenders by analyzing data from a national factorial survey. Results show disclosing the offense immediately to the public, reporting to the police, and having a witness are positively related to punitive attitudes towards the offender, via increased perceived credibility of the victim. The results highlight the importance of understanding extralegal factors in shaping stereotypic views about sexual assault in the #MeToo era.

Empathy or perceived credibility? An empirical study of Muslim donating behaviour through online charitable crowdfunding in Indonesia

Purpose This study aims to analyse the factors influencing Indonesian Muslims’ donation behaviour through online charitable donation-based crowdfunding. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the stimulus-organism-response framework, with technological characteristics, campaign characteristics and religiosity as the stimulus; empathy, perceived credibility and quality of relationship as the organism; and intention to donate as the response variables. In analysing the data, it used the structural equation modelling approach with the partial least squares method. The study involved 405 Muslim respondents who have donated through the largest online charitable crowdfunding platform in Indonesia. Findings The main findings suggest that empathy and perceived credibility are key determinants influencing the intention to donate through crowdfunding. Both factors are subsequently affected by initiator reputation, campaign popularity, content quality, transaction convenience and website quality. Such intention also goes hand in hand with the improved quality of relationships between the organisation and the donors, subsequently influenced by their religiosity. Practical implications The main findings imply that fundraising campaigns and technology’s characteristics play a significant role in the intention to donate. Such findings are expected to enhance understanding of individuals’ philanthropic behaviour in Indonesia and to suggest appropriate operational strategies to facilitate individuals’ donation behaviour in charitable crowdfunding. Originality/value Despite the high potential of charitable crowdfunding, studies regarding the factors influencing charitable donations made through such organisations remain scarce. This study contributes to the literature by taking the case of the largest online charitable crowdfunding platform in Indonesia.

THE IMPACT OF USING INFLUENCER ON CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION WITH ATTITUDE TOWARDS INFLUENCER AND BRAND ATTITUDE AS MEDIATOR

This study is conducted to determine the effect of perceived credibility, trust, experience, and attractiveness as an evaluator of influencers' effectiveness on consumer purchase intention in fashion products mediated by attitude towards influencers and brand attitude. Influencers are those who regularly share content related to certain fields or skills on social media platforms. This study is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and other previous studies related to influencers' effectiveness on purchase intention of fashion products. The population in this study is 385 women in Surabaya with a non-probability sampling method using a purposive sampling technique. The data analysis method used in this study is Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Square (SEM PLS) with a smart PLS 3.0 program. The analysis results in this study show that perceived credibility, trust, and attractiveness have a positive and significant effect on attitude towards influencers. In contrast, perceived expertise has a negative and insignificant impact on attitude towards influencers. Attitude towards influencers fully mediates the influence of perceived credibility, trust, and attractiveness on brand attitude and purchase intention. Brand attitude fully mediates the influence of attitude towards influencers on purchase intention. In this study, variable perceived expertise used did not affect attitude towards influencer variables. This is different from previous studies that have been done before. For further researchers, it is suggested that they can again use perceived expertise and other variables that can support more deep assessments that give rise to consumer attitudes towards an advertisement made by fashion product influencers in subsequent studies using different populations. The analysis model that has been used in this study can then be reused in conducting further research with varying numbers of populations and types.

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

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.