Earticle

Social commerce is a new type of e-commence that is based on social networking technologies and aggressive marketing strategies, such as one-deal-a-day. However, although social commerce has become very popular, little is known of customers’ substantive purchasing behaviors when using social commerce sites. These behaviors, namely visiting and purchasing behaviors, are the focus of this study. Hence, this study aims to provide comprehensive understanding of the visiting and purchasing behaviors of customers in relation to social commerce sites. A research model based on the utilitarian and hedonic values of shopping, social influence, and convenience, which represent social commerce features, was developed and empirically analyzed using data from social commerce site users. The results revealed that purchasing behaviors of consumers when they use social commerce sites are affected directly by the utilitarian value (perceived usefulness) of the site as well as their purchase intention. Purchase intention is affected by perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and visiting behaviors. The visiting behaviors of consumers in relation to social commerce sites are also affected directly by the hedonic value (playfulness) of the site as well as their intention to visit the site. The findings of this study have implications for practitioners with regard to understanding and promoting the use of social commerce sites.

Technology acceptance model has demonstrated that technology adoption behavior can be explained by two user belief constructs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. A number of studies have explored how these beliefs develop by utilizing primarily individual-level antecedents. However, because innovation and new techniques bear a direct relation to social concerns, non-individual antecedents may be necessary. Therefore, in this study, social and organizational supports are used to understand how software developers foster beliefs regarding secure coding practices. We compiled data from 83 software developers to evaluate the technology acceptance model. Our findings show that these collective antecedents can effectively explain user belief constructs and the intention to adopt secure coding methodologies. These findings imply that society and organizations offering more concrete support programs will experience smoother deployment of security-enhancing measures.

Almost all Koreans recognize the Dolhareubang as a representative symbol of Jeju. However, as the development of online technology progressed, the image and perception of the Dolhareubang is also expected to change. Thus, this study explored the perceived images of Dolhareubang by focusing on residents in Seoul, Korea using Q methodology. The goal of this research was to evaluate this iconic representation of Jeju as an important component of the island’s online tourism destination image. The Q-set was developed from existing literature and defined conceptually in terms of ‘value’, ‘resource’, ‘story’, and ‘image’. Thirty five respondents were recruited as P set. Findings indicated four distinctive clusters that perceived the Dolhareubang differently and differences in perceptions were observed in terms of age. The examination of destination image and the exploration of the perceptions of Dolharuebang as a representative of Jeju could contribute to online destination image management or development, which is a crucial component of smart tourism.

While most of studies have paid attention to the initial adoption of a specific application, research on applications has not focused on an individual’s update decision process. This study draws upon both dual information processing and status quo bias perspectives as a comprehensive theoretical lens to explain why individuals do not update their applications. This study assumes that individuals’ inertia could be the main reason for their reluctance to update the applications. Based on a survey of 186 smartphone users, this study demonstrated that both habit as an affective trigger of system 1 thinking and sunk cost as a cognitive trigger of system 2 thinking promoted the two types of inertia (i.e., affective and cognitive based inertia) in individuals, which have a negative effect on their willingness to update their applications. By grounding the research model in a theoretical view, such as dual information processing and status quo bias, this study provides a unique theoretical lens from which to view individuals’ behaviors, thereby gaining a better understanding of their decision not to update to the current version of applications. This study also investigates the moderating effect of the types of applications on the relationships between affective/cognitive-based inertia and willingness to update. Results show that both habit and sunk cost decrease the willingness to update because they increase both affective and cognitive-based inertia. This study also found that the effects of affective/cognitive based inertia differed depending on the type of applications.

Human cognition and decision-making related to information systems (IS) is a major area of interest in IS research. Among these areas, cognitive bias rooted in behavioral economics is gaining considerable attention from researchers. In the present study, we identify the role of cognitive biases and discuss how they shape the information security behavior. We also seek research opportunities to provide directions and implications for future research.

Previous studies on strategic alliance formation have largely overlooked the effects that organizations’ routine development can have on the relationship between organizations’ network position and their alliance ambidexterity strategy. This study extends ambidexterity research by adding internal and network perspectives and examining their cumulative effects on alliance ambidexterity. We first acknowledge the interplay between organizations’ internal knowledge exploration/exploitation strategies and organizations’ alliance ambidexterity and determine that organizations with a high level of internal knowledge breadth are more likely to make focused alliance decisions. Second, our analysis of 145 US-based information technology organizations with an active alliance behavior reveals that having well-formed routines as a result of previous collaborations strengthens the tendency of brokerage organizations to follow alliances that focus on either exploration or exploitation. Although most alliance studies have commonly argued in favor of an ambidextrous approach, this study provides critical evidence that both internal knowledge exploration/exploitation strategies and development of routines constrain organizations’ alliance formation decisions, guiding them towards a more focused approach.

Research on information systems and software engineering has often neglected behavioral effects, which may play a role in decision making on software development. The current study addresses this issue by empirically investigating the behavioral roots of over-requirement in the context of a software development project via an experiment. The negative phenomenon of over-requirement refers to specifying a software system beyond the actual needs of the customer or the market, which overload the system with unneeded features. The research question addressed here is whether over-requirement is due in part to the emotional involvement of developers with the software features they developed because of behavioral effects. Previous studies have demonstrated that under the endowment, I-designed-it-myself, and IKEA effects, people become emotionally involved and overvalue physical items that they respectively possess, self-design, or self-create. The findings of our experiment show that participants over-valued features they were assigned to be responsible for, to specify, or to construct, thereby confirming that the three behavioral effects play a role in software development decisions and affect over-requirement. Thus, the study contributes to software development research and practice from the behavioral economics perspective, highlighting the roots of over-requirement.