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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe different viewpoints on the use of social networking sites (SNSs). It analyzes perceptional typologies of SNS users and the characteristics of each type, which has similarities and differences. It also examined possible relationships among different perceptional types, users’ self-identities, and their personality.Design/methodology/approach This study utilized Q-methodology in order to identify diverse explanations of SNS users’ perspectives. Q-methodology requires participants (referred to as P sample) to sort a series of items (Q-statements). After completing a questionnaire including demographics, self-identity, etc., each respondent performed the Q-sorting work. This task involves sorting well-composed statements about SNSs (Q-sample). In all, 46 SNS users from a university in Korea were chosen as participants. Once the P sample had finished Q-sorting, participants had in-depth interviews. When all interviews were finalized, analysis of the Q-sorts was done with the help of QUNAL program.Findings Consequently, four types of SNS users were identified and given the following descriptive labels: Impression Management Type, Lurker Type, SNS Enjoyer and Relationship Focus Type, and Social Value Orientation Type. Further, there was a significant difference in “Relational Identity” among user types. Regarding personality, the extraversion of Type III appeared to be the highest, and the extraversion of Type II appeared to be the lowest.Originality/value Combining aspects of both qualitative and quantitative research to study the subjectivity, the findings of this study provide insight for further research regarding an audience study or an examination of the media behaviors of SNSs. It also suggests theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of psychological needs in the association between individualism and internet addiction.Design/methodology/approach A mixed-method design was used by comprising of 602 college students’ (70.3 percent women) responses obtained through the Individualism-Collectivism Survey, New Needs Assessment Questionnaire, and Internet Addiction Scale. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to investigate the theoretical relationships among the constructs. Constant comparative method was employed to analyze qualitative data that resulted from the transcription of semi-structured interviews with 12 field experts.Findings Quantitative results showed that individualism has a significant effect on internet addiction through affiliation, dominance, achievement, and autonomy (i.e. psychological needs). As students’ needs for dominance, achievement, and autonomy increased their internet addiction levels decreased. However, increase in the need of affiliation led to increase in the likelihood of internet addiction. Qualitative findings suggested alternative ways to satisfy psychological needs in socially more proper ways.Originality/value Psychological needs and internet addiction have long been investigated both independently and in relation to each other. However, the investigation of espoused culture (i.e. individualism) in relation to psychological needs and internet addiction is relatively recent. A review of the recent literature showed that an investigation of the mediating role of psychological needs in the effect of individualism on internet addiction is highly original. Moreover, initial quantitative results and follow-up qualitative findings help the authors understand psychological needs underlying internet addiction and suggest socially more appropriate means to satisfy these needs. Findings have theoretical values for researchers as well as practical values for those who work with students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Previous studies of e-servicescapes have considered general internet consumers as the main research subjects; however, some studies have argued that heavy users are the main sources of consumption. Understanding heavy user’s consumption traits is crucial for enhancing company profits; hence, the purpose of this paper is to compare the significant attributes of e-servicescapes and clarify their relationship with purchase intention by employing heavy and light internet users as moderators.Design/methodology/approach An online questionnaire was used to collected data from 342 valid internet users with online shopping experience, and the differences were compared through structural equation modeling.Findings Aesthetic appeal and interactivity significantly increase general users’ purchase intentions. For heavy users, interactivity was the most crucial factor, followed by esthetic appeal, and then layout and functionality. For light users, Aesthetic appeal was the only crucial factor. The data also reveal that financial security does not have significant positive effects on general, heavy, or light users.Originality/value Using the insight gained by integrating purchase intention with e-service quality and segmentation theory in the e-servicescape, the authors display how heavy and light internet users evaluate the e-servicescape for signals of quality attributes and contribute their cognitive response and purchase intention according to different consumption traits. Internet retailers are recommended to segment heavy and light users, redesign their current e-servicescapes, and provide more appropriate marketing strategies to attract and keep heavy and light users and enhance their purchase intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Previous research has found support for depression and anxiety severity in association with both increased and problematic smartphone use. However, little research has explored transdiagnostic psychopathology constructs as mediators that may account for these relationships. The purpose of this paper is to test rumination as a possible transdiagnostic (cross-sectional) mediator in these relationships.Design/methodology/approach The authors recruited 296 college students to complete relevant web survey measures, including the patient health questionnaire-9 (for depression severity), social interaction anxiety scale (for social anxiety severity), ruminative thought styles questionnaire, smartphone addiction scale-short version (to measure levels of problematic smartphone use), and a measure of smartphone use frequency.Findings The authors found support for a structural model whereby the severity of depression and social anxiety accounted for variance in rumination, which, in turn, correlated with problematic smartphone use levels. Rumination accounted for relations between both depression and social anxiety severity with levels of problematic use.Originality/value The authors discuss the role of rumination as a possible mechanism between anxiety- and depression-related psychopathology levels with problematic smartphone use severity. This study is unique in exploring rumination in the context of problematic smartphone use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore technology acceptance and use behavior of IS innovations by entrepreneurs. To measure the perception of IS innovations by entrepreneurs the authors review unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and the entrepreneurial potential model, empirically compare the two models, develop a new model that integrates elements from the two models, and then empirically validate the new model (technology adoption decision and use (TADU)) in a technology acceptance context.Design/methodology/approach The data used to test the hypothesis are collected from 1,200 entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The research model was analyzed using structural equation modeling.Findings The results indicate that perceived desirability and perceived feasibility have significant effects on entrepreneurs’ intention to adopt and use innovations. Propensity to use is an important factor that has a significant effect on individual behavior. The precipitating events that happen in the time lag between intention and behavior will disrupt entrepreneurs’ inertia and induce a change in their behavior, encouraging them to seek the best opportunity available.Practical implications Understanding the individual, technological, and environmental factors that significantly affect IT adoption behavior can support policy makers in providing guidance on the adoption and usage of IT innovations by entrepreneurs.Originality/value This study proposes a TADU model with six core determinants of intention and usage – perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions and two new moderators, precipitating events and the propensity to act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This study makes an integrated approach in identifying the factors affecting usage intention of mobile-based payment services. Such services are being marketed aggressively by cellular service providers and are different from usual mobile-based banking. The study incorporates prominent factors like the technical characteristics, technology-specific characteristics, user-specific characteristics, and task-specific characteristics and others from published literature. The purpose of this paper is to highlight those factors which have significant impact on the adoption of such service so that the adoption rate can be increased. Design/methodology/approach – A nationwide primary survey was conducted using validated questionnaire requesting response for the factors obtained from published literature. In total, 196 respondents participated in the survey. Totally, 11 hypotheses were formulated and statistically tested for their significance in context to the study. Confirmatory study was on the significant factors and a model has been proposed. Findings – The study finds that factors like perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, system quality, connectivity, discomfort, task-technology fit and structural assurance have significant impact on the usage intention of mobile money services whereas factors such as perceived monetary value, absorptive capacity and personal innovativeness have been found to be insignificant. Originality/value – There have been no studies conducted which reported mobile-based transfer payment adoption issues where-in the transfer mechanism is independent of formal banking. The findings would be beneficial for service providers of mobile-based payment services to understand their subscribers and roll out value added services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – What makes investors tick? Largely counter-intuitive compared to the findings of most past research, this study explores the possibility that funding investors invest in companies based on social relationships, which could be positive or negative, similar or dissimilar. The purpose of this paper is to build a social network graph using data from CrunchBase, the largest public database with profiles about companies. The authors combine social network analysis with the study of investing behavior in order to explore how similarity between investors and companies affects investing behavior through social network analysis. Design/methodology/approach – This study crawls and analyzes data from CrunchBase and builds a social network graph which includes people, companies, social links and funding investment links. The problem is then formalized as a link (or relationship) prediction task in a social network to model and predict (across various machine learning methods and evaluation metrics) whether an investor will create a link to a company in the social network. Various link prediction techniques such as common neighbors, shortest path, Jaccard Coefficient and others are integrated to provide a holistic view of a social network and provide useful insights as to how a pair of nodes may be related (i.e., whether the investor will invest in the particular company at a time) within the social network. Findings – This study finds that funding investors are more likely to invest in a particular company if they have a stronger social relationship in terms of closeness, be it direct or indirect. At the same time, if investors and companies share too many common neighbors, investors are less likely to invest in such companies. Originality/value – The author’s study is among the first to use data from the largest public company profile database of CrunchBase as a social network for research purposes. The author ' s also identify certain social relationship factors that can help prescribe the investor funding behavior. Authors prediction strategy based on these factors and modeling it as a link prediction problem generally works well across the most prominent learning algorithms and perform well in terms of aggregate performance as well as individual industries. In other words, this study would like to encourage companies to focus on social relationship factors in addition to other factors when seeking external funding investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify user-generated content (UGC) features that determine web purchase decision making. Design/methodology/approach – The authors embed a spike-and-slab Bayesian variable selection mechanism into a logistic regression model to identify the UGC features that are critical to web purchase intent. This enables us to make a highly reliable analysis of survey data. Findings – The results indicate that the web purchase decision is driven by the relevance, up-to-dateness and credibility of the UGC information content. Research limitations/implications – The results show that the characteristics of UGC are seen as positive and the medium enables consumers to sort information and concentrate on aspects of the message that are similar to traditional word-of-mouth (WOM). One important implication is the relative importance of credibility which has been previously hypothesized to be lower in the electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) context. The results show that consumers consider credibility important as the improved technology provides more possibilities to find out about that factor. A limitation is that the data are not fully representative of the general population but our Bayesian method gives us high analytical quality. Practical implications – The study shows that UGC impacts consumer online purchase intentions. Marketers should understand the wide range of media that provide UGC and they should concentrate on the relevance, up-to-dateness and credibility of product information that they provide. Originality/value – The analytical quality of the spike- and- slab Bayesian method suggests a new way of understanding the impact of aspects of UGC on consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of two intrinsic (i.e. sense of self-worth and socializing) and two extrinsic motivations (i.e. economic reward and reciprocity) on mobile coupon (m-coupon) sharing by users in social network sites (SNSs). Moreover, this study examines how coupon proneness moderates the relationship between motivations and m-coupon sharing in SNSs. Design/methodology/approach – A research model that integrates four motivations, coupon proneness, and m-coupon sharing is developed. Quantitative data from 247 users are collected via online and offline survey. Partial least squares technique is employed to evaluate the measurement model, and hypotheses are tested through hierarchical regression analysis. Findings – Sense of self-worth, socializing, economic reward and reciprocity have positive effects on m-coupon sharing in SNSs. Furthermore, coupon proneness positively moderates the relationship of socializing and reciprocity with m-coupon sharing, whereas the moderating effects of coupon proneness on the relationship of sense of self-worth and economic reward with m-coupon sharing are insignificant. Originality/value – The findings highlight the integrated effects of coupon proneness and motivations on m-coupon sharing in SNS. The impact of socializing and reciprocity on m-coupon sharing is higher for users with higher coupon proneness. However, the effect of sense of self-worth and economic reward on m-coupon sharing is the same regardless of coupon proneness of users. Therefore, although users with different motivations should be identified, SNSs and merchants should develop different incentive mechanisms to promote m-coupon sharing among various users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a better picture of factors influencing behavioral decisions in online shopping by identifying different targets of trust and discussing their antecedents and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Online survey data from 242 ihergo members were used to test the proposed model, and structural equation modeling with partial least squares was performed to analyze the measurement and structural models. Findings – The findings show that the four types of trust identified in this study are critical determinants of perceived risk and attitude. In addition, the majority of the antecedents are found to be associated with their respective types of trust. Research limitations/implications – The research extends the theory of reasoned action and prior research to discuss four types of consumer trust, as well as their respective antecedents and subsequent consequences. The result is a more descriptive model that better explicates consumers’ decision-making processes in online shopping. Practical implications – Given the intense competition between online shopping sites, web site managers should strive to provide a safe and user-friendly shopping environment. In addition, the vendor can enhance trust by encouraging satisfied customers to provide positive endorsements. Originality/value – This study is possibly the first of its kind, in identifying the four types of trust and their respective antecedents in the context of an online group-buying auction, and thus serves to enrich the existing literature concerning trust-building factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]