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Despite the broad application of the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework to explain firms' adoption of technology, prior research tends to over‐emphasise the independent effects of TOE elements while neglecting decision makers' strategic orientations when making organisational technology adoption decisions. This over‐simplistic interpretation of the TOE framework has culminated in inconsistent findings within extant literature. Considering the interdependencies among the three TOE elements in shaping organisational technology adoption and also decision‐makers' inclination to weigh the three TOE elements differently based on their strategic orientations, this study views organisational technology adoption from a systems standpoint based on a configurational approach. Particularly, we differentiate between two types of strategic orientations, namely functional orientation, which accentuates the technology‐induced efficiency gains and symbolic orientation, which stresses the image or reputation afforded through technology adoption. We advance a configurational model for organisational technology adoption that: (1) conceptualises organisational technology adoption as an outcome arising from distinct configurations of TOE elements, and; (2) extends the TOE framework by incorporating strategic orientation as an inevitable aspect of decision‐making for organisational technology adoption. To validate our proposed model, we conducted a field survey of 183 firms to collect data on their considerations underpinning organisational technology adoption before employing fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to derive configurations of TOE elements responsible for driving such adoption. Analytical results reveal that the TOE configurations vary across three types of organisations (namely performance enhancer, image builder and strategic transformer). The theoretical and practical implications of our study are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust violations of online sellers are widely reported in customer reviews and are often ascribed to the sellers’ lack of integrity. These reported violations reduce potential customers’ trust in the accused sellers, given the critical role of seller integrity in e-commerce. However, accused sellers and buyers often dispute the ascriptions of trust violations (e.g., sellers may argue that a violation is due to their lack of competence instead of their integrity). The trust repair literature has inadequately focused on effective strategies to repair reported integrity-based trust violations in ascription disputes. Drawing upon attribution theory and individuals’ cognitive sensemaking process regarding trust violations, we propose an account-based approach through reascription and stability attributions, enabling accused sellers to repair potential customers’ trust in them in the event of such disputes. We theorize the effectiveness of this approach by considering the contingent role of the accused seller’s reputation. The results of our laboratory experiments confirm the effectiveness of our approach in repairing potential customers’ trust forsellers with a high reputation but not for sellers with a low reputation. We further investigate the effectiveness of disclosing substantive amends (i.e., financial compensation) made by the accused seller to the victim as an alternative approach to repairing potential customers’ trust in sellers with a low reputation. The results reveal the significant effects of disclosing substantive amends on repairing potential customers’ trust in the seller, regardless of the seller’s reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online social cues that utilize user-generated data, such as user reviews and product ratings, have become one of the key factors influencing online user behavior and decisions. Online users who shared their reviews and ratings about a product (or a seller) become an abstract reference group to a focal user interested in the same product. This study focuses on sponsored search results (SSRs), a type of unsolicited information that matches users' search queries and receives high evaluations from prior consumers. We investigate the effects of positive social cues on alleviating users' avoidance responses toward an encountered SSR when searching for a product in a C2C e-commerce context. We synthesize the avoidance literature and identify three forms of SSR avoidance, namely, cognitive, behavioral, and affective avoidance. We apply users' implicit concerns on SSRs to explain users' avoidance of an encountered SSR. In addition, we extend social influence theory to online settings where abstract reference groups are posited to trigger social influence. We examine how and under what conditions the three forms of SSR avoidance can be reduced by various positive online social cues (i.e., product- and seller-related). We conduct three laboratory experiments. Results attest to users' implicit concerns on SSRs and their avoidance of SSRs and reveal different effects of various social cues on reducing the three forms of SSR avoidance. This study uncovers the theoretical mechanisms of social influence on reducing SSR avoidance in online settings. It also offers practical implications for online search service providers to help online users' decision making in their search process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is paramount to developing and maintaining long‐term relationships in all stages of the customer lifecycle, including the repurchase stage. This research goes beyond the simple finding documented in the extant trust literature that the effect of trust will diminish. It sheds light on the role of institutional contexts and develops a nuanced understanding of the boundary conditions under which trust operates in the repurchase stage, where knowledge‐based trust becomes more predominant. Drawing on a different theoretical tenet, prospect theory, we find that customers exhibit distinctively different transaction intentions in the two perceptual conditions of high and low trust in institutional contexts. Specifically, the nonlinear relationship between trust and repeat online transaction intention is inverted U‐shaped curvilinear when trust in institutional contexts is high, but is U‐shaped when trust in institutional contexts is low. With data collected from both e‐commerce and mobile banking contexts using two different measures of institutional contexts, we employed a new and advanced latent moderated structural (LMS) equations approach for analysis and provided robust results. Our findings largely confirm the hypotheses and offer theoretical, methodological, and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today’s emerging and competitive e-marketplaces, sellers must take competitive action to improve their sales performance. E-marketplace platform operators offer sellers a portfolio of platform-based functions that are intended to enhance competitiveness. However, little is known about how these platform-based functions can be used at the repertoire level to improve the sales performance of e-marketplace sellers. Extending the competitive repertoire theory to the e-marketplace context and integrating it with the e-commerce literature on reputation, we posit that a seller could improve sales performance by using these functions as a repertoire, featuring such structural characteristics as large volume, high complexity, and heterogeneity. We also posit that the performance impact of this repertoire approach to function use varies depending on seller reputation, manifested as customer rating. We empirically examined the hypotheses with a unique longitudinal dataset consisting of 43,992 seller-week observations from Taobao, one of the largest e-marketplaces in the world. Our analyses yield a set of interesting findings that unveil more nuanced theoretical relationships between different structural characteristics of the platform-based function repertoire and sales performance under different levels of seller reputation. We elaborate on how these findings contribute to the e-marketplace literature in the information systems field and the competitive action research in the strategy field. We also discuss implications for practice and make suggestions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By tracking consumers’ browsing and purchase history, web personalization generates taste-matched recommendations for each consumer to stimulate purchases. In addition to taste-matching, mobile personalization matches recommendations to a consumer’s physiological need and current location. These two additional features, referred to as need-matching and location-matching, are believed to be enablers of unplanned purchases. However, mobile advertisers may not be able to generate recommendations that meet all personalization criteria. Hence, mobile recommendations may be imperfect. We examine two questions in relation to imperfect recommendations. First, how do we use a descriptor to promote such recommendations? Second, what personalization criterion should be downplayed to induce unplanned purchases? Drawing upon the theory of mood congruence, we theorize that the effect of imperfect recommendation on consumers’ unplanned purchases depends on their mood. We conducted three field experiments to test our hypotheses. Our findings indicate that (1) consumers in positive moods are more likely to form an urge to buy than those in negative moods, and this difference is larger when the descriptor is partial than when it is complete (Experiment 1); (2) need-matching is more influential on urge to buy for consumers in negative moods than for those in positive moods (Experiment 2); and (3) for taste-and-need-matched recommendations, location-matching exerts a stronger effect on the urge to buy for consumers in negative moods than for those in positive moods (Experiment 3). We validated the relevance of our research findings to practice through interviews with senior executives in personalization solution providers. Pathways for enhancing practical impacts of this line of research are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a comprehensive model to predict and explain the use of collaborative technologies (CT) and the task performance of individual users as a result of using CT. The [...]

This paper reports an experiment that examines the impact of multimedia and instructional mode on learning of a complex decision. An experiment with two types of media (text vs. audio) and three levels of instructional mode (instruction without animation vs. instruction with animation not under subject control vs. instruction with animation under subject control) was conducted with 133 participants. The results show that textual media led to better decision quality than audio media both when learning and after learning was completed. When learning, instruction with animation not under subject control led to better decisions than instruction without animation; however, there was no significant difference after learning was completed. instruction with animation under subject control was not more effective than instruction without animation or instruction with animation not under subject control. There was no significant interaction between media and instructional i-node. Implications of these findings on the design of multimedia-based training programs are discussed. Key words: Multimedia, Animation, Decision Making., 1. INTRODUCTION The popularity of computer-based training programs is partly attributable to the fact that these programs can not only be adapted to individual learner's pace and style, but can [...]

An iterative procedure that can reduce human decision-making requirements in large scale analytic hierarchy process problems is presented. The procedure informs the decision maker when a decision alternative has been reached that dominates the rest of the unevaluated alternatives. A probability distribution holds that despite integral problem differences, the technique would result in an average decition time saving of 50%.

This study investigates the motivational factors affecting the quantity and quality of voluntary knowledge contribution in online Q& A communities. Although previous studies focus on knowledge contribution quantity, this study regards quantity and quality as two important, yet distinct, aspects of knowledge contribution. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study proposes that five motivational factors, categorized along the extrinsic-intrinsic spectrum of motivation, have differential effects on knowledge contribution quantity versus quality in the context of online Q& A communities. An online survey with 367 participants was conducted in a leading online Q& A community to test the research model. Results show that rewards in the reputation system, learning, knowledge self-efficacy, and enjoy helping stand out as important motivations. Furthermore, rewards in the reputation system, as a manifestation of the external regulation, is more effective in facilitating the knowledge contribution quantity than quality. Knowledge self-efficacy, as a manifestation of intrinsic motivation, is more strongly related to knowledge contribution quality, whereas the other intrinsic motivation, enjoy helping, is more strongly associated with knowledge contribution quantity. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has long considered service quality as a primary determinant of user satisfaction with information technology (IT) service delivery. In response to the knowledge-intensive and collaborative nature of IT service delivery in the contemporary business context, we advance the theoretical understanding of user satisfaction by re-conceptualizing IT service delivery as a bilateral, relational process between the IT staff and users. Based on this reconceptualization, we draw on social capital theory to examine the antecedents of user satisfaction with IT service delivery. Specifically, we posit that two major dimensions of social capital, i.e., cognitive capital and relational capital, not only positively affect user satisfaction but also strengthen the established relationship between service quality and user satisfaction. Furthermore, we propose that the effect of the other dimension of social capital—structural capital—on user satisfaction is fully mediated through cognitive capital and relational capital. A field study of 159 users in four financial companies provides general empirical support for our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]