Adoption of Online Social Networks to Communicate with Financial Institutions

Spain's financial sector is not in a healthy state, and the problems that some financial institutions currently face perpetuate the widespread perception of risk across the entire sector. Moreover, the online social networks (OSN) that emerged a decade ago are suddenly at the very heart of digital society. In this study we develop a predictive model to determine that the motivational factors that influence Spanish users' intention to use OSN to communicate with financial institutions are quality management, availability of information, external conditions, trust, perceived compatibility, perceived usefulness, attitude, and intention. Data were collected from 335 Spanish OSN users through an online survey. The results suggest that quality management has a highly significant and positive effect on perceived usefulness and that perceived usefulness has a positive and significant effect on the intention to use social networks to communicate with financial institutions.     

Costly Ties: Social Capital as a Retardant of Network‐Level Entrepreneurial Orientation

Challenging social capital research, we argue that network top management teams (TMTs) established to support entrepreneurship in strategic multipartner networks should be careful in developing ties to outside organizations and networks. We suggest that such ties limit the network TMT's ability to engage in the strategy‐making processes needed to facilitate entrepreneurial orientation on a network level. Based on five‐year panel data from 53 formalized networks of small and medium‐sized enterprises, we demonstrate that homogenous and highly educated network TMTs can compensate the negative effects of TMT ties to other organizations, but not the negative effects of interlocking directorates.     

Why we watch others' responses to online advertising – investigating users' motivations for viewing user-generated content in the context of online advertising

The study investigates Internet users' motivations for viewing user-generated content (UGC) in the context of online advertising. In addition, it is examined whether individual motivation patterns can be traced back to users' personalities and their attitudes toward advertising in general. An online survey of 181 social media users was conducted, surveying users' motivation, personality (big five), and attitude toward advertising in general. Path analysis was employed to examine the research model. The use of UGC was motivated by needs for information, entertainment, personal identity, and social interaction. While personality did not predict users' motives, their attitudes towards advertising in general explained individual motivation patterns to a large extent. It was consequently proposed and confirmed that users' motives mediate the influence of recipients' general attitude toward advertising on UGC usage. Results indicated a strong effective potential for UGC in online advertising: users view such content expressly to be influenced by others fulfilling their needs for information, personal identity and social interaction. Firms may lose some of their ability to precisely control brand messages when advertising in social media.     

Valuing customers for social network services

In the current Internet environment, many online service companies based on community factors (networks) produce and sell new types of digital products. For example, SNS (social network service) companies now sell customers digital decorative products for the adornment of online avatars. Not only do individual customers consume these digital products, but they also exchange them as gifts in their local neighborhoods. While previous studies on customer valuation (e.g. CLTV, RFM, etc.) focus on some important issues for identifying valuable customers, the literature does not resolve issues related to the effects on customer value of products purchased as gifts for another person. This study attempts to verify empirically the effects of two representative social network properties (tie strength and the number of ties) on customer monetary value.This study selects 2615 customers from a South Korean SNS website who enrolled on the site on the same day. Data include diverse purchase-related information, social network properties in terms of gift-giving for six months, and demographic information. The primary results of this study are as follows. First, the proposed model, which includes social network properties, has a great deal more explanatory power than the baseline model — the RFM-based customer value model. Second, tie strength and the number of ties in a gift-giving network increase customer value. Third, tie strength has a more profound impact on customer value than does the number of ties. The results of this study theoretically expand the domain of customer valuation studies due to the inclusion of social network properties, and suggest important practical implications for some online SNS companies in their efforts to find valuable customers and improve customer value.     

浅析LEO卫星网络中的QoS路由问题

LEO卫星网络能够提供全球覆盖,为任何地点的用户提供适时应用服务。然而由于LEO的高速运动,LEO卫星网络的网络拓扑一直处于动态变化的过程中。文中首先分析了在这种动态变化的网络环境中QoS路由面临的新问题,接着提出了解决这些问题的几点考虑。     

Online users' attitudes toward fake news: Implications for brand management

This study examines brands' vulnerability to fake news. The rapid spread of online misinformation poses challenges to brand managers, whose brands are cocreated online, sometimes to the detriment of the brand. There is a need to identify the information sources that are likely to be trustworthy and to promote positive consumer attitudes toward brands. The data for this study were taken from a Flash Eurobarometer of 26,576 respondents across 28 European countries. Cluster analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data and unveil users' attitudes toward fake news. The findings show that users' attitudes toward fake news differ among European countries. Younger and tech-savvy users are more likely to recognize fake news and are consequently able to evaluate digital information sources without relying on policy interventions to limit the impact of fake news. Brand managers can use the findings of this study to better understand different kinds of users' susceptibility to fake news and reshape their social media branding strategies accordingly. It is hoped that this paper will encourage further research on brand management in relation to fake news and promote the widespread adoption of best practices in social media communication.     

What drives content creation behavior on SNSs? A commitment perspective

We investigate the mind-sets driving users' content creation behavior on social network sites (SNSs) and antecedents of these mind-sets. The results of our survey of 1242 Renren users in China indicated that affective and continuance commitments are the main drivers of users' content creation behaviors on SNSs, while normative commitment has little influence on content creation behaviors. Further, informational support and emotional support from the social support perspective, reputational capital and relational capital from the sunk cost theory, subjective norm and perceived critical mass from the social influence perspective perform well as antecedents of affective, continuance, and normative commitment, respectively.     

Can information and communication overload influence smartphone app users' social network exhaustion,privacy invasion and discontinuance intention? A cognition-affect-conation approach

Thanks to the expansion of network technologies and the coupling of smartphone hardware, younger generations have unparalleled access to a diverse range of information and interactive communication opportunities. Despite voluminous research on the causes of social network exhaustion and privacy invasion, limited academic attention has been devoted to understanding the driving forces and contributing factors for discontinuing usage of smartphone app. Drawing on the cognition-affect-conation paradigm, the present research proposes a conceptual research model to examine how information overload and communication overload effect social network exhaustion, privacy invasion, and ultimately, smartphone app users' intentions to discontinue usage. The study evaluates data from 442 smartphone app users, employing statistical analyses to demonstrate that both information overload and communication overload significantly impact users' exhaustion and privacy invasion. Additionally, social network exhaustion and privacy invasion are two major predictors of smartphone app discontinuance intention. By identifying the influential factors and causes of younger generations' discontinuous usage intention of smartphone app, this study meets the need for a thorough assessment of the social network exhaustion and privacy invasion phenomena. The findings may potentially enhance comprehension of the discontinuation intention phenomenon in the context of cognitive overload. Furthermore, they may provide novel insights for practitioners regarding effective strategies conducive to managing mobile social network adoption behavior, as well as the preservation of engagement levels among young users in mobile-saturated societies.     

Checkout button and online consumer impulse-buying behavior in social commerce: A trust transfer perspective

To enhance social media users' shopping experiences, social media platforms launched an online shopping feature – the checkout button –allowing users to browse new products, examine items via multiple photos and videos, and purchase items without leaving the platform. Yet, few studies have examined the impacts of the ‘checkout button’ on social commerce users' perceptions and impulse-buying behaviors. Thus, this study seeks to investigate the impact of the ‘checkout button’ on consumers' trust and impulse-buying behavior based on the trust transfer theory, as well as how the impact will differ based on social factors and brand familiarity in social commerce. This study provides valuable insights into social commerce. Checkout within Instagram does not facilitate impulse-buying behavior, but brand familiarity and social factors influence consumer trust and impulse-buying intention. This indicates that well-known brands might be more suitable for social commerce. Furthermore, active social interaction is conducive to impulse-buying intentions in social commerce.     

Key quality factors affecting users' perception of social networking websites

PurposeThe main aim of the present study is to evaluate the quality factors of websites and their effect on users' perceptions about quality in the context of social networking websites.Design/methodology/approachThis is an applied study conducted as a field survey. A conceptual framework of website quality is proposed and empirically tested that combines quality factors and users' overall perception about quality. Based upon conceptual frameworks in the areas of information systems and using responses from 300 users, a seven factors scale has been validated and data were used to test the conceptual model. To test validity of conceptual framework, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and regression analysis was performed to examine the suggested hypotheses in the conceptual framework.FindingsIn this study, six different significant factors namely efficiency, entertainment, community drivenness, privacy, user friendliness, efficiency and navigability were identified to be significant for the service quality of social networking websites. Using the survey conducted in the statistical sample, only the factor of web appearance was identified as less important for social networking website users.Practical implicationsFindings from this research provide a set of essential and desired quality factors that social networking website developers can use to improve the quality of existing websites in turn increasing its numbers of users, thus bringing benefits to the company. Second, this study shows how perceived quality has a direct and profound effect on the degree of consumer perception about website quality.Originality/valueThis study, expanding a conceptual model, tries to identify the set of service quality factors for social networking websites. The information of these quality factors as a major predictor of consumers' quality perception provides social networking websites management an initial point for making successful quality management practices for their e-commerce.     

The double-edged impact of social media on online trading: Opportunities,threats, and recommendations for organizations

While we understand well how social media channels sway consumers, there is little understanding of their influence on online trading behavior. We argue that social media are creating a new class of self-directed online traders by simultaneously encouraging and biasing trading decisions. Through an empirical study, we show that heavy social media users are more likely to engage in online trading but are largely affected by online herding behavior, and are four times more likely to blindly follow other traders. Bloggers, influencers, social network contacts, and social media news shape these users’ online trading behaviors. As online traders influenced by social media are unlikely to receive adequate returns, companies face an ethical dilemma: They could leverage social media to efficiently access funds but they risk inappropriately exploiting the inexperience of online traders biased by social media. We offer a set of nine practical recommendations for organizations to respond to these new challenges.     

Network architecture and firm performance: A resources-based view

Previous studies have investigated alliance networks primarily from two alternative views, a relational view that focuses on the “strength of strong/weak ties,” or a structural view that refers to a firm’s position and structural embeddedness. We posit a firm’s network architecture, i.e., the portfolio of strong/weak ties, influences its conduct and performance. From a resource-based view, the network architecture itself could be a source of sustained competitive advantage. We argue that both network architecture and duration of a firm can enhance its performance. However, their effects and the interaction are contingent on different performance outputs. Using strategic alliance networks data from a survey of the manufacturing industry in China, we examine the performance implications of network architecture. Results suggest that benefits from networks may evolve with network duration, hence firms should search for optimal network configurations. By integrating an alliance portfolio, firms with dual network architectures can enjoy both the strengths of strong ties and weak ties and avoid the risks inherent in a pure strong/weak-tie network.     

Cross-decision social effects in product adoption and defection decisions

Researchers and practitioners have long been aware of the capacity to use information on consumers' product adoptions and defections to forecast the adoption and defection behavior of others in their social networks. Yet, herein, we suggest that such information still holds substantial untapped predictive potential. Specifically, this paper is the first to define and investigate cross-decision social effects, i.e., the effects of customer defections on network neighbors' adoption decisions, and the effects of customer adoptions on network neighbors' defection decisions. We incorporate these effects into a conceptual framework that enables us to explore them concurrently with same-decision social effects (the effects of adoptions on adoptions and of defections on defections), which have been researched extensively. We develop a multi-event hazard model to describe this framework, and estimate it using two unique data sets on a communication network and on adoption and defection dates for a mobile add-on. We obtain strong empirical evidence for negative cross-decision social effects that are larger for strong ties than for weak ties.     

Social Network-Based Discriminatory Pricing Strategy

In this paper we study such pricing practices like MCI's Friends and Family Program that employ price discriminations on the basis of callers' social ties. We characterize a consumer's personal communication network by the number of strong and weak ties that the consumer has. We then derive a consumer's demand for communication service from the structure of the consumer's personal communication network. A monopoly firm's social network-based discriminatory pricing strategy consists of a menu of price plans, each plan targeting at one type of social networks. Our paper provides useful guidelines for the design of optimal social network-based discriminatory pricing strategies. We show that a firm may offer price discounts to communications between friends and family members in order to extract a larger profit from communications between callers with weak ties.     

Development of Trust Scores in Social Media (TSM) Algorithm and Application to Advertising Practice and Research

Trust is an important factor, particularly in viral/social advertising, and computing trust scores for individual users of a social network is crucial for several applications in the advertising research and practice. However, research on trust in the advertising field has been limited, and the application of computational trust to advertising research using big data is rare. Addressing the gap in the research literature, this study proposed and empirically tested a new social media analytics method, the Trust Scores in Social Media (TSM) algorithm, for measuring individual users' trust levels in a social network. TSM proposes the concept of negatively reinforced trust scores and introduces two complementary measures of trust, trustingness, and trustworthiness. Another unique and important element in the TSM algorithm is the incorporation of trust-decision involvement to adjust trust scores depending on the level of trust-decision involvement of different networks. Using small survey data and big data from social networks, this study demonstrated the effectiveness of the TSM algorithm. Various applications of the TSM algorithm to viral/social advertising research and practice are also discussed.     

Forgotten or not? Home country embeddedness and returnee entrepreneurship

Building on the social network and strategic entrepreneurship literature, we investigate the overall relationship between returnee entrepreneurs’ networks in different periods and locations, domestic resource acquisitions and firm performance. While the labor mobility literature emphasizes the “gone but not forgotten” networks in the prior location of migrants, other studies argue that returnees suffer from a lack of local networks. Our findings show that returnee entrepreneurs are different in the extent of their home country embeddedness while they are overseas, which indicates different degrees of enduring networks in the home countries. The effect of home country embeddedness improves the performance of returnee entrepreneurship via domestic resource acquisition, and this effect could be substituted by pre-overseas local ties and the presence of local top management team (TMT) members. This study extends returnee research by shedding light on the importance of network maintenance in determining whether the home country’s network endures or decays and by highlighting the interactions of ties in the different periods of pre-overseas, during overseas, and after return.     

Economic geography and emerging market clusters: A co-evolutionary study of local and non-local networks in Bangalore

The presence of network ties within location plays a significant role in organization and evolution of clusters. This has proven to be particularly true for clusters specializing in knowledge intensive industries, where the organization of resources – people and technology – has been a primary driver for firm and regional performance. With the help of a longitudinal case study of the Bangalore IT cluster in India, we investigate the effect of local and non-local network ties on its evolution. We argue that networks – both local and non-local – play an important role in the development of cluster. We propose a non-linear relationship between cluster evolution phases and the type of network ties most prominent. Our study also outlines the role that embedding, expansion, and extension of ties plays in transitioning cluster from one phase to the other. The consideration of non-local ties is rather nascent in the cluster literature and promises to enhance the understanding of how clusters develop at both levels – policy as well as firm.     

Text mining-based four-step framework for smart speaker product improvement and sales planning

The smart speaker market, which is considered an early-stage market, is expected to grow rapidly as smart speakers become a part of daily life. Consequently, manufacturers are trying to dominate the market. To achieve this, they must analyze users' reactions to their products and find insights for product improvement through comparison with competitors. We propose a four-step methodological framework for identifying meaningful opinions from a large number of online user reviews. First, network analysis is conducted to compare differences between brands. Next, through topic modeling, the attributes of speakers that users consider the most crucial are extracted for each brand. Third, sentiment analysis is conducted to examine how users' emotional polarities differ for each attribute. Through this, product improvement and product sales plans can be derived. Finally, in order to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of each brand, brand positioning is conducted and user opinions that have changed along with the evolution of the speaker's generation are analyzed. Our study identified the factors that positively or negatively affect the experience of smart speaker users. In addition, the proposed method is highly useful because it can be used to derive insights from a large amount of user opinion data regardless of the search term.     

How attachment affects user stickiness on live streaming platforms: A socio-technical approach perspective

User stickiness is an important factor in the development of live streaming shopping platforms, which describes the degree of users' attention to the platforms. Although some e-commerce websites have provided live streaming services to improve the purchase experience of consumers, few people know how the services affect user stickiness. Building upon attachment theory and socio-technical approach, we developed a theoretical model to understand how live streaming service affects the user stickiness through users' attachment, which is tested by using 425 live streaming shopping platform's users. The results showed that technical factors (synchronicity and vicarious expression) and social factors (interaction and identification) positively affect emotional attachment to streamers and platform attachment respectively, which in turn increase the user stickiness.