“I'll buy what she's #wearing”: The roles of envy toward and parasocial interaction with influencers in Instagram celebrity-based brand endorsement and social commerce

Companies increasingly leverage Instagram as a channel for brand management, consumer services, and social commerce. This study addresses the dynamics of interaction among brand-related user-generated contents (UGC) posted on Instagram, social media-based brand communication with Instagram celebrities (parasocial interaction [PSI] and envy), and consumers' characteristics (social comparison tendency, compulsive buying tendency, and materialistic envy). Three between-subjects experiments (Experiment 1: N = 121; Experiment 2: N = 106; Experiment 3: N = 377) were conducted to test the effects of Instagram influencers and their branded-UGC on consumer behavior outcomes. Experiment 1 employed a 3 (branded content type [Instagram influencer's photo type]: selfies vs. photos taken by others vs. group photos) x 2 (gender: female vs. male) factorial design. Experiment 2 employed a 2 (content generator type: Instagram celebrity vs. mainstream celebrity) x 2 (gender: female vs. male) factorial design. Experiment 3 deployed a 2 (branded content type: photos listing products vs. photos showing models) x 2 (content generator type: commercial brand [corporate] vs. Instagram celebrity [human]) factorial design. Experiment 1 indicates Instagram influencers' photo types and gender moderate the effects of envy toward and PSI with them on consumers' intention to buy the products Instagram influencers are wearing. Experiment 2 shows content generator types and gender moderate the effects of envy and PSI on source trustworthiness perception. Experiment 3 demonstrates branded content types and content generator types moderate the effects of consumers' physical appearance social comparison tendency, compulsive buying tendency, and materialistic envy on brand trust. This study makes theoretical contributions to the literature on retailing and consumer services as well as provides managerial implications for Instafamous-based influencer marketing and social commerce in Web 2.0 environments.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers' Attitude toward Social Commerce Sites

Drawing upon technology acceptance model (TAM), this study investigates the antecedents and consequences of consumers' attitude toward social commerce sites. In addition to the antecedents of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use from TAM, the study includes such factors as perceived trust, perceived shopping enjoyment, perceived shopping risk, and perceived social presence. The study results suggest that consumers' attitudes toward social commerce sites are significantly impacted by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived shopping enjoyment, and perceived shopping risk. The study also finds that consumers' attitudes toward social commerce sites significantly influence the effects of e-word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention, intention to return, and e-purchase intention. This study provides an integrative approach to evaluating antecedents and consequences of consumers' attitude toward social commerce sites. Limitations and future research are discussed.     

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.     

Corporate social responsibilities,consumer trust and corporate reputation: South Korean consumers' perspectives

This study proposes and tests a model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that specifies relationships among (1) four categories of CSR initiatives as independent variables, (2) three types of consumer trust as mediating variables, and (3) corporate reputation as the dependent variable. Results show that the firm's fulfillment of economic and legal CSR initiatives had a direct positive effect on corporate reputation, whereas neither ethical nor philanthropic CSR initiatives did. In the CSR-trust link, economic performances fostered consumer expertise trust, legal and ethical CSR activities affected integrity trust, and philanthropic CSR activities influenced social benevolence trust in the firm. This study confirms that all three types of trust partially or fully mediate the effect of the four CSR initiatives on corporate reputation. This outcome indicates that CSR activities create and nurture consumers' trust in the company, which will, in turn, bring about consumers' positive or improved perceptions of the firm.     

Investigating consumer binge-watching behavior: A valence framework perspective

Binge-watching (BW) behavior has emerged rapidly in recent years. However, a comprehensive understanding of how BW is influenced and how it has changed is lacking. This study uses the valence framework to hypothesize the effects of positive valences (advantages) and negative valences (drawbacks) on consumers' tendency of BW through the mediating effects of consumer attitudes toward BW and tests the role played by consumers' self-control in the association between consumer attitudes toward BW and the tendency of BW. The results from the survey data analysis (N = 454) identify three negative valences (depression, loneliness, and social problems) and four positive valences (enjoyment, passing time, stress relief, and social interaction) that influence consumer attitudes toward BW. In addition, we confirm a U-shaped relationship between consumers' attitudes toward BW and the tendency of BW and find that consumers’ self-control has a moderating effect on this U-shaped association. Theoretically, we extend the valence theory into the study of BW behavior and investigate the specific positive and negative valences in this area. Practically, our findings could help broadcasters design strategies to promote BW.     

A cross-cultural analysis of ridesharing intentions and compliance with COVID-19 health guidelines: The roles of social trust,fear of COVID-19, and trust-in-God

Ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft have been substantially affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on social capital theory, the current research investigates how social trust relates to three types of trust in compliance with COVID-19 guidelines and consumers' ridesharing intentions. Analyzing data from two economically and culturally distinct countries, the results suggest that social trust positively affects trust in platform companies' compliance with COVID-19 guidelines (TPC), but not (or to a lesser extent) trust in drivers' (TDC) and other riders (TRC) compliance with COVID-19 guidelines in both the United States and Bangladesh. Importantly, TPC, TDC, and TRC are positively related with consumers' ridesharing intentions in the United States but not in Bangladesh. Furthermore, the analysis reveals two counterintuitive moderating effects of fear of COVID-19 and trust in God. The results provide important insights on factors affecting the ridesharing industry in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they emphasize the importance of considering cultural context in understanding consumers’ intentions to engage in the sharing economy.     

The Importance of Consistency in Establishing Cognitive-based Trust: A Laboratory Experiment

This paper reports the results of two experiments onthe importance of three trust cues on establishinginterpersonal trust within a business setting. Theliterature (Lewis and Weigert, 1985; Ring, 1996) hasidentified two aspects to trust: a cognitive elementin which trust is the result of a rational calculationby the trustor about how the trustee will behave inthe future, and an emotional element in which trust isthe product of a strong positive affection between thetwo individuals. Most social relations, includingeconomic ones, are based on cognitive trust, whereasemotional trust is the basis for intense personalrelationships, such as love and friendship. Thisstudy focuses on three cognitive-based cues thatengender trust within a dyadic relationship: thefrequency with which the trustee and trustor interact,the competence of the trustee, and the consistency ofthe trustees previous behavior. In two experiments,using a budget setting, trust is measured as theperceived reliability of the trustees budgetinformation and the estimated time for the trustor tocomplete the budget task. The results reveal that theconsistency of the trustees previous behavior is themost important element in engendering cognitive-basedtrust within a dyad.     

Social media influencers: The formation and effects of affective factors during online interactions

Social media influencers emerged as powerful sources in affecting and guiding consumers' purchase decisions through self-generated content and online interactions with their followers. A large number of studies have so far focused on cognitive aspects such as perceived credibility, trustworthiness, and expertise of these influencers. This study aims to further advance the existing literature on social media influencer marketing from an affective perspective, with a focus on the emotional bonds generated by online interactions between the influencer and their followers. Based on the interpersonal process model of intimacy and theories in celebrity endorsement and social media influencer marketing, it examines the impact of self-disclosure and perceived responsiveness on familiarity and intimacy, which, in turn, affect purchase decision. An online survey was conducted with 304 social media users in Mainland China who have followed social media influencers. The results highlight the formation of two affective factors, namely, familiarity and intimacy, via self-disclosure and perceived responsiveness. Theoretically, this study provides a fresh perspective to better understand the endorser effect outside the regular set of cognitive factors. Marketing practitioners and companies can follow the suggestions of this study to select more effective social media influencers for their marketing campaign, and to build closer relationships with their target customers.     

电子商务交易中信任度计算模型研究

信任是建立社会关系的基础,也是建立社会秩序的基本工具。在电子商务领域,信任则是交易能够发生的前提,如何度量信任、计算信任则成为电子商务系统的重要组成部分。本文针对目前电子商务信任管理系统中信任计算模型存在的问题,提出一个综合考虑用户信任度影响因素的信任度计算模型,给出相应的计算公式和方法,并引入信任担保机制、信任奖惩机制等,以克服现行信任管理系统对新用户的不公平以及存在的"freerider 现象"等。     

Predictors of consumers’ willingness to share personal information with fashion sales robots

This study investigates whether consumers' self-interests and social interactions predict their willingness to share their personal information with a fashion sales robot. The study develops hypotheses based upon the information sharing theory and tests them by building a decision tree predictive model. Using a video stimulus of a fashion sales robot, we conduct interviews, pretests, and main data collection (n = 464) in the United States. The results indicate that service quality, enjoyment, and usefulness, which reflect self-interest, and trust, which reflects social interaction, predict consumers’ willingness to share personal information with the robots. These results suggest that fashion marketers should focus strategically on service quality and enjoyment when they adopt AI sales robots and use them as a medium to share information in customer service.     

Consumer perceived value and impulse buying behavior on mobile commerce: The moderating effect of social influence

This study examines how the consumers' perceived values (utilitarian and hedonic values) impact their impulse buying behavior (IBB) in the mobile commerce (m-commerce) context. Moreover, we view interpersonal influence as a moderator and test its impact on the correlation between the consumers' perceived value and their IBB. Data were collected through a survey in China (n = 199). The results show that environmental stimuli significantly influence consumer perceived values (i.e., perceived utilitarian value and perceived hedonic value), and the consumers’ perception of hedonic value significantly and directly impacts their IBB. In addition, the interaction effect of perceived hedonic value and interpersonal influence significantly affects IBB. The findings provide valuable guidance for m-commerce retailers to induce consumer IBB.     

Factors influencing consumers' purchase decision-making in O2O business model: Evidence from consumers' overall evaluation

Online-to-offline (O2O) has become a rapidly growing e-commerce model worldwide, but the factors influencing consumers' purchase decision-making have not been examined well. After exploring the working mechanism of the O2O model, we extract eleven indexes of consumers' overall evaluation in the O2O model with Crawlzilla and R techniques. Social network analysis (SNA) is adopted to build social networks reflecting consumers' overall evaluation in the O2O model. Based on the modified social network and the extracted subgraph, this study (N = 768) reveals consumers' overall evaluation behavior patterns in the O2O model by calculating network density, central potential, edge betweenness. The results show that shoppers overall evaluate the eleven indexes, especially perceived product quality, online product price, promotion intensity, business reputation, and product brand, which reflects the significant associations between the indexes. Among all the eleven evaluation indexes, perceived product quality, online product price, and business reputation dominate consumers’ decision-making behavior. When making purchase decisions, consumers not only overall consider online product price, perceived product quality, and business reputation but also balance perceived product quality, business reputation, and promotion intensity. Finally, we make some suggestions on marketing strategy for e-commerce companies.     

Consumers’ willingness to disclose their personal data in e-commerce: A reciprocity-based social exchange perspective

While personal data is invaluable to firms, the drivers of e-commerce customers' willingness to disclose their personal data remain tenuous. Using social exchange theory, we develop a model that explores the impact of consumers' perceived benefit, and relative power, on store trust, in turn driving their willingness to disclose their personal data. We collected our empirical data using a representative online survey, with the results being analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The results corroborate that (a) consumer-perceived e-commerce store trust drives their willingness to disclose their personal data, and (b) perceived e-commerce provider reciprocity outweighs consumers’ perceived data disclosure benefit, suggesting the existence of symbolic (vs. purely instrumental) social exchange.     

Trust Promoting Seals in Electronic Markets

Abstract

In order to promote web sales, companies conducting electronic commerce are constantly seeking viable and efficient ways to increase web traffic. One approach is to build consumers' trust, and ultimately to increase web sales. Many business-to-consumer online merchants follow this approach and display trust-promoting seals on their websites. However, whether these seals really fulfill the tasks they have promised has remained unexplored. This study empirically examines the influence of trust-promoting seals on consumers' online purchasing decisions. The results show that the trust-promoting seals are generally effective in promoting web sales, and some seals enhance promotion better than others.     

Media amplification of a brand crisis and its affect on brand trust

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which consumers' brand trust during a brand crisis is affected through direct experience versus when it is amplified through mass media. By using case-study methodology, our findings reveal that generalised public images of a product crisis initiate a public perception of risk, which provides more negative effects on brand trust than the actual consumers' experience does. We introduce the media as a third partner influencing the trust relationship between consumers and brands, and offer suggestions for restoring and preserving customers' brand trust.     

Consumers' cognitive and affective responses to brand origin misclassifications: Does confidence in brand origin identification matter?

Although research on country-of-origin (COO) effects in general is abundant, findings regarding the phenomenon of brand origin misclassification (i.e., consumers' association of a brand with the wrong COO) remain limited and inconclusive. This study fills this research gap by investigating how consumers' cognitive and affective responses upon learning the true origin of a previously misclassified brand drive the extent to which they revise their brand evaluation. Specifically, the authors explore the role of consumers' confidence in brand origin identification in this context. The results from an empirical study in South Korea (N = 259) suggest that consumers tend to adjust their brand evaluations only if the true COO is perceived more favorably; they tend not to take a worse COO into consideration. Moreover, negative emotions lead to greater losses in brand evaluation than positive emotions lead to gains in that respect.     

The impact of online celebrity in livestreaming E-commerce on purchase intention from the perspective of emotional contagion

The purpose of this study is to investigate (1) if online celebrities can directly emotionally influence consumers, and (2) if the other audiences of the same livestream can indirectly emotionally influence consumers to increase their willingness to buy the products recommended by the online celebrities. Therefore, to understand the reasons for the successes of livestreaming e-commerce. Two studies have been conducted: in Study 1, a questionnaire-based survey has been used for data collection and AMOS version 17.0 software was used to analyze the data of the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM); in Study 2, a web data crawler for data collection was developed using python software, and the collected data were processed by ICTCLAS text splitting tool and analyzed by Stata/MP 13.0 software for the econometric model constructed in this paper. This study found that the performance of online celebrities can stimulate consumers' emotions, and thus enhance consumers' purchase intention regarding the products recommended. This study also found that pleasure, arousal, admiration, and emotional trust can influence purchase behavior for cosmetics and clothing. For food products, only pleasure emotion, arousal emotion and admiration emotion can increase the willingness to purchase such products. For other audiences who watch the same Online celebrity for food products, the pleasure, arousal, and admiration emotions can increase searches for, and purchases of the products recommended. This study identified that online celebrities' performances can emotionally influence consumers' willingness to purchase products recommended by online celebrities directly. In addition, the emotions of audiences watching the online celebrities can indirectly influence consumers' willingness to purchase products recommended by the online celebrities.     

Icing on the cake or gilding the lily? The impact of high-modified model images on purchase intention

Marketers had high expectations for modified model images in E-commerce, however, the social movements against photoshopped models suggested the high-modified model images may be harmful to consumers which leads to a contradictory phenomenon. So far, the link between high-modified model image and consumers' behavior is not clearly understood. Drawing on a selective accessibility model (SAM), this study investigates the influence of high-modified model images on consumers' purchase intention by introducing the concept of misrepresentation and identifying consumer trust as a mediator. Based on five experiments, we demonstrate that over-modified model images decrease consumers’ perceived authenticity referring to “misrepresentation”, and further lower their purchase intention. By comparing the level of misrepresentation, the results suggest that high-modified model images decrease purchase intention. Moreover, this negative relationship between misrepresentation of modified model images and purchase intention is mediated by consumer trust. Hence, this study makes a step toward explaining how high-modified model images impacts the behaviors of consumers, shedding new light on the application of image modification in online advertising.