How online gamers’ participation fosters their team commitment: Perspective of social identity theory

Online games are highly popular applications. While online gamers actively participate in gaming teams, no study has yet explored whether gamers have sufficient teamwork knowledge and have accumulated sufficient team participation experience. These likely strengthen team commitment, but we do not know, indicating a research gap. Research filling this gap could shed light on useful means for enhancing gamers’ team commitment. Grounded in social identity theory, we theorize the mechanism that links gamers’ overall gaming team participation experience and overall gaming teamwork knowledge to their team commitment. We collect two-wave data from 344 online gamers that have played massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and use structural equation modelling for data analysis. We find that overall team participation experience is positively related to gaming team identification, while overall teamwork knowledge is positively related to compliance with gaming team norms. Both team identification and norm compliance are positively related to gaming team commitment. This study is the first to clarify the mechanism underlying the impacts of overall gaming team participation experience and overall gaming teamwork knowledge on gamers’ team commitment. Our findings provide the practical insight that game designers should incorporate game features that require or reward gamers’ participation in gaming teams or enhance gaming teamwork knowledge, thus strengthening gamers’ team commitment.     

Investigating consumers’ online social shopping intention: An information processing perspective

Online social media is transforming the way customers communicate and exchange product information with others. Consumers increasingly rely on the opinions and recommendations from social media members when making purchasing decisions. However, information received from social media may have different meanings and social implications for consumers. Based on the theory of informational social influence and heuristic-systematic model (HSM), we develop a model to understand the relative importance of informational social influence, normative social influence, and perceived information quality on the consumer’s social shopping intention under different levels of product involvement. The results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) using a sample of 503 consumers in the Facebook brand fan pages indicate that social influences have a greater impact on the consumer’s social shopping intention than perceived information quality. Three social interactional factors (perceived similarity, familiarity, and expertise) have a positive effect on social shopping intention via the mediation of informational, normative social influence and perceive information quality. The multiple-group analysis suggests that high product-involved consumers are motivated to exert more cognitive effort to evaluate the product information. In contrast, low product-involved consumers are more susceptible to informational social influence. We draw on these findings to offer implications for researchers and practitioners.     

What is it about humanity that we can’t give away to intelligent machines? A European perspective

One of the most significant recent technological developments concerns the development and implementation of ‘intelligent machines’ that draw on recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. However, there are growing tensions between human freedoms and machine controls. This article reports the findings of a workshop that investigated the application of the principles of human freedom throughout intelligent machine development and use. Forty IS researchers from ten different countries discussed four contemporary AI and humanity issues and the most relevant IS domain challenges. This article summarizes their experiences and opinions regarding four AI and humanity themes: Crime & conflict, Jobs, Attention, and Wellbeing. The outcomes of the workshop discussions identify three attributes of humanity that need preservation: a critique of the design and application of AI, and the intelligent machines it can create; human involvement in the loop of intelligent machine decision-making processes; and the ability to interpret and explain intelligent machine decision-making processes. The article provides an agenda for future AI and humanity research.     

Diverse needs and cooperative deeds: Comprehending users’ identities in online health communities

In recent years, the number of online health communities (OHCs) has increased rapidly as more patients seek to access alternate sources of health information and connect with other patients who have similar health concerns. However, insufficient attention has been paid to investigating user identities in OHCs. To address this potential research gap, by elaborating on the communication theory of identity, this study presents a multi-layered framework to analyze the different layers of user identities that are portrayed in OHCs. Through coding analysis, we discovered that the personal-layer identities that appear in OHCs are patients, partners, offspring, parents, friends and relatives, and others. Moreover, a series of detection models for the personal-layer identities of users were developed, which incorporated content features into machine learning approaches, and they achieved F1-scores above 0.88. Furthermore, we analyzed the features of enactment-layer identities presented by users’ posting behavior and content and the impact of the personal-layer identities of users on the features of the enactment-layer identities. The findings suggested that the features of the enactment-layer identities differed significantly among users with diverse personal-layer identities in terms of both behaviors and communication needs. Users who were identified as patients served as both information seekers and providers, whereas users with the personal-layer identities of parents tended to engage in the community continuously. Our findings extend the understanding of user identities within the context of OHCs.     

Applying a principle of explicability to AI research in Africa: should we do it?

Ethics and Information Technology - Developing and implementing artificial intelligence (AI) systems in an ethical manner faces several challenges specific to the kind of technology at hand,...     

Information management can’t be all fun and games,can it? How gamified experiences foster information exchange in multi-actor service ecosystems

This paper investigates whether gamified experiences in a multi-actor service ecosystem can be used to encourage customers’ information exchange behavior. Furthermore, it examines the impact of customers’ knowledge sharing attitude on the relationship between experiential value and customers’ information exchange behavior. Structural equation modeling was used to assess these dynamic relationships and provide a scalable measurement instrument that can be applied to gamified experiences ranging from simple customer-interface interactions, all the way up to multi-actor service ecosystems. Our findings support the notion that managers can use gamification to foster information exchange and thereby value co-creation between customers and employees directly, without necessarily having to change customers attitudes first. The findings also suggest that gamification can be applied successfully in cases of large groups of people with widely varying characteristics, backgrounds, and motivations. Additionally, our research indicates that experiential value is a suitable candidate for a consistent measurement instrument for gamification. This study is the first to apply a holistic experiential value approach to a gamified experience that simultaneously accounts for customers’ interactions with a multisensory physical environment, their personal interactions with employees, and their interactions with other customers.     

How the emoji use in apology messages influences customers’ responses in online service recoveries: The moderating role of communication style

This research investigates the impact of using emojis (i.e., the pleading-face emoji) on customer forgiveness in relation to handling complaints on social media. Specifically, this research proposes that perceived firm sincerity and perceived firm empathy play mediating roles in the relationship between emoji use and customer forgiveness. In addition, the research identifies the moderating role of communication style in the proposed relationship. Results of three experimental studies indicated that the presence of the emoji in online complaint handling leads to an increase in perceived firm sincerity, which in turn increases perceived firm empathy and, subsequently, leads to customer forgiveness. The serial mediation effects (use of emojis → perceived firm sincerity → perceived firm empathy → customer forgiveness) were moderated by the service provider’s communication style. Specifically, the serial mediation effect occurs when an informal communication style, but not a formal communication style, is used. Furthermore, no difference exists in the research findings across different service types (hedonic vs. utilitarian).     

Positive management in libraries: if you build it,they won’t necessarily come

Both Jim Lynch and Stuart Fitzgerald are UK representatives of the American company, Library Systems & Services. LSSI is a private management company working for local authorities wishing to outsource library services. Jim Lynch is also a consultant with Ploszajski Lynch Consulting, specialising in sport, leisure and cultural projects. Stuart Fitzgerald is a management consultant with many years’ experience in procurement and performance management in the private, public and voluntary sectors.     

The important thing is not to win,it is to take part: What if scientists benefit from participating in research grant competitions?

“The important thing is not to win, it is to take part,” this famous saying by Pierre de Coubertin asserts that the value athletes draw from Olympic games lies in their participation in the event and not in the gold they collect during it. We find similar evidence for scientists involved in grant competitions. Relying on unique data from a Swiss funding program, we find that scientists taking part in a research grant competition boost their number of publications and average impact factor while extending their knowledge base and their collaboration network regardless of the result of the competition. Receiving the funds increases the probability of co-authoring with co-applicants but has no additional impact on the individual productivity.     

Investigating factors influencing the physicians’ adoption of electronic health record (EHR) in healthcare system of Bangladesh: An empirical study

Electronic Health Record (EHR) can promote awareness or knowledge about healthcare among patients and healthcare professionals to improve collaboration between different governmental bodies, and enhance healthcare quality. The aim of the study is to identify the critical farctors affecting the physicians’ adoption of EHR in healthcare system of Bangladesh by extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to include Personal Innovativeness in Information Technology and Resistance to Change. A cross-sectional survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 300 participants in different private and public hospitals in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The study used partial least square (PLS) method, a statistical analysis technique based on the structural equation modeling (SEM), to analyze the collected data. The results of the study determined that Social Influence (β = 0.19, P < 0.05), Facilitating Conditions (β = 0.19, P < 0.05), and Personal Innovativeness in Information Technology (β = 0.19, P < 0.05) had a significant influence on physicians’ Behavioral Intention to adopt the EHR system, whereas Performance Expectancy (β = 0.08, P > 0.05), Effort Expectancy (β = -0.02, P > 0.05), and Resistance to Change (β = 0.03, P > 0.05) had no significant influence. The findings suggest that policymakers should increase the adoption of the EHR system by developing social strategies to encourage physicians to stimulate each other to use the EHR system and ensuring technical sufficiency, training to facilitate the use of the EHR system. In addition, the policymakers should identify physicians who possess a propensity to experiment with new information technologies as well as reduce existing challenges and barriers such as computers crush, poor infrastructure with erratic power supply etc. Moreover, we identify future research areas that provide scholars opportunities to push theoretical and empirical boundaries and offer further insights into the study of the EHR system.     

Extending lead user theory to users’ innovation-related knowledge sharing in the online user community: The mediating roles of social capital and perceived behavioral control

The research on users as a source of innovation has been coming into blossom and the studies about the effect of users’ lead userness on their innovation-related activities are drawing more and more attention from both academic and business circles. However, there have been few empirical studies exploring the relationship between users’ lead userness and their innovation-related knowledge sharing behavior in the context of online user community and the mediating effects of users’ social capital and their perceived behavioral control on this relationship. By empirically analyzing the 140 data collected from an online user community that is used as an important source of innovation for a company with the structural equation modeling analysis through the partial least squares method, this study reveals that users’ lead userness has a positive relationship with their innovation-related knowledge sharing in the online user community and users’ social capital and perceived behavioral control jointly and fully mediate this positive relationship. Based on the new findings, this study is expected to provide useful implications which can contribute to widening and deepening the research stream about the effect of users’ lead userness on their innovation-related knowledge sharing in the online user community.     

“Mobile internet is worse than the internet; it can destroy our community”: Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women’s responses to cellphone and smartphone use

Abstract

In this article I explore use patterns and perceptions of cellphone and smartphone use among Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women with participant observations, interviews, and a survey. My findings show that although they differ in their cellphone use (the Amish mostly do not use them and the Ultra-Orthodox only use those deemed to be “kosher”), they concur in their nonuse of smartphones – they see the smartphone as impure. Both view smartphones as undermining social relations and community by distracting users away from friends and family.