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Online product (or service) review platforms are increasingly incorporating receipt-based consumer verification as a means of filtering out fake reviews. In this method, consumers are required to upload a photocopy of their receipt before they can write a review. This study aims to examine how this additional step before writing a review impacts the length and ratings of the online review. We analyze a large-scale database of reviews obtained from a prominent Korean portal that initially featured a platform-verified review system only but later introduced a receipt-based consumer-verified review system. The unique contextual setting, where a single platform offers both platform-verified and consumer-verified review systems, enables us to compare review elements between the two different systems without being concerned about potential effects arising from differences in platform characteristics. We found that receipt-based consumer verification leads to shorter and more negative reviews compared to platform verification. We also found that the introduction of a consumer-verified review system reduced the average review duration in the platform-verified review system. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the study.

Generative AI is increasingly shaping human experiences across creative, social, and professional domains. While its digital capabilities offer new opportunities for enhancing user engagement, personalization, and productivity, its dual impact on users’ psychological needs remains underexplored. Grounded in self-determination theory, this study investigates how generative AI both satisfies and frustrates users’ psychological needs and examines the broader implications of this dynamic. Employing a netnographic methodology, the research draws on over 1.5-year of naturalistic online AI Community observation, resulting in a rich dataset comprising 2,062 pages of data. This research uncovers paradoxical relationships between generative AI features and users’ needs – autonomy, competence, and relatedness – highlighting the simultaneous fulfillment and frustration they can provoke. These findings offer critical insights for the user-centered design of generative AI systems, and have implications for developers, business professionals, and policymakers aiming to balance innovation with psychological well-being.

Live-streaming commerce has gained popularity in recent years, shifting users’ shopping patterns from traditional experiences to real-time interactions, by delivering information and entertainment to users. Drawing upon the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, this study investigates the influence of perceived live-streaming affordance and perceived streamer characteristics on users’ cognitive and emotional states (enjoyment, psychological distance, trust) and behavioral response (purchase intention) from a live-streaming commerce perspective. The data were collected through a survey administered to South Korean respondents with prior experience in using live-streaming commerce. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used to verify the relationships proposed in the model. The results showed that perceived live-streaming affordance and perceived streamer characteristics have a positive impact on enjoyment and trusting the seller, reducing psychological distance and promoting users’ purchase behavior. The results provide theoretical and practical insights into the psychological mechanisms of live-streaming commerce that influence the psychological distance felt by users towards the products. Relevant managerial implications are discussed.

The field of Information Systems (IS) has emerged as a core domain within the convergence paradigm that integrates information technology (IT) and management to advance both academic and practical applications. As developments in information and communication technology (ICT) have made large-scale data more accessible, research efforts have increasingly focused on uncovering the structural evolution of IS knowledge systems and research trends. Previous studies have employed text mining and network analysis to analyze titles, abstracts, and keywords from IS journals; however, most have been limited to specific time periods or domestic journals, lacking a longitudinal and comparative perspective across leading global and regional journals. To address this gap, this study collected all articles published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems (APJIS) (1991–Q3 2022) and Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ) (1977–Q3 2022). The extracted keywords were categorized into research topics, methodologies, and theories, followed by four analytical approaches: frequency analysis, trend analysis, topic modeling, and keyword network analysis. These methods were used to identify and compare the longitudinal research trends and intellectual structures of the two journals. The findings reveal that both APJIS and MISQ have evolved from system- and technology-centered studies toward data-driven, AI-enabled, and user-focused research. While MISQ has consistently led the introduction of new research themes and theoretical frameworks, APJIS has expanded and contextualized these themes within the Asia-Pacific setting. This study is expected to provide practical guidance for IS journal stakeholders and future researchers by identifying the developmental trajectories of global and regional IS research and proposing promising directions for future studies.

Online reviews, as a notable form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), have demonstrated a significant association with a broad range of consumers, particularly in shaping their impressions of products or services and influencing their purchasing intentions. Both review ratings and sentiment reflect the reviewer’s satisfaction and attitude after using a product or service. Additionally, reviewers with greater relevant experience are often able to provide more insightful evaluations. Based on this, our study analyzes the relationship between review ratings and textual sentiment and their link to review helpfulness, using movie reviews collected from IMDb.com, while also considering the moderating role of the reviewer’s relevant experience. Our findings indicate that extreme ratings are more strongly related to review helpfulness. Moreover, regardless of the sentiment expressed in the review title and text, reviews with more negative sentiment are generally perceived as more helpful. Reviewer experience, especially when relevant to the movie genre being reviewed, amplifies the connection between rating, title sentiment, and text sentiment and review helpfulness. This study confirms the relationship between three key factors and review helpfulness, further clarifying the moderating role of reviewer relevant experience. These results contribute to eWOM research and enrich the literature on review helpfulness.

Lots of virtual communities and online businesses presently derive their primary sources of revenues through advertising, but nevertheless are plagued with marginal profitability though they might possess a significant user base. In the light of the need for an efficacious business model, there have been recent insights of an online community in particular reaping profits through an innovative and lucrative revenue generation method that earns by selling digital items. There have been some obvious evidences (e.g., Cyworld, SecondLife, Habo Hotel, etc.) that online communities can be profitable through their unique business model of selling digital items. However, there is lack of understanding about the motivation of purchasing digital items. This study tries to identify the main motivators of digital item purchases based on social/individual identity theory and self-presentation theory. ”Digital items”, otherwise known as ”virtual assets”, may include online avatars, accessories for the avatars, decorative ornaments like furniture, digital wallpapers, skins, background music and virtual weapons used for Internet games. These digital items are employed by users for representation and articulation in the online space, especially to create and enhance their online profiles in web pages and games. Prices for digital items typically range from a few cents to a few dollars each. Based on the theoretical framework like social identity theory and self-presentation theory, we developed the research model and proposed seven hypotheses. An analysis of 225 members of Cyworld found that digital item purchase intention in virtual world is affected by both members' need for self-presentation and need for affiliation. We also found that the need for self-presentation is significantly increased by innovativeness of members, community group norm, and community involvement. We concluded that the need for self-presentation could be a key variable for profitable business model in online community service industry. However, neither individual self-efficacy nor the need for affiliation significantly influenced the need for self-presentation which triggers purchase intention of digital items. In term of the theoretical and practical contribution, this study can be a pioneering empirical research that investigates the purchase intention of digital items based on social identity theory and self-presentation theory in the online context. Also, the findings of our study are valuable and practical for practitioners in the market who wish to adopt or improve the business model of selling digital items in an online community. From the findings, it can be seen that innovativeness of users, community group norm, and community involvement are three significant factors that influence need for self-presentation of users which ultimately leads to their intentions to buy digital items. These findings put forth that virtual community providers and online businesses selling digital items should prioritize their efforts and focus on these three factors if they want to increase the sales of these digital items and generate greater revenues. This study provides important implications for academic researchers and practitioners to understand why the community members pay money for their digital items in virtual world and how the practitioners can increase the sales of digital items in an online community. A couple of limitations of the study and futureresearch directions are also discussed.

In the recent e-learning environment, avatars are often used to help learners get familiar with the contents, which is ultimately to motivate them to study more. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether avatars have actually the desirable effect on users of e-learning materials. Surprisingly, however, no extensive study has been conducted on this crucial issue Accordingly, main objectives this study are summarized as follows. First, we need to gain better understanding of how much learners’ trust towards avatars (termed as “avatar trust”) is transferred to learners’ trust towards e-learning contents (termed as “contents trust”). Second, we need to investigate how much learners’ personal relationships with avatars as well as learning behaviors change depending on avatar types (attractive vs. professional) and contents complexity (easy vs. difficult). As described in the study objectives, in order for us to analyze empirical data more systematically, we classified avatar types into two: “attractive” and “professional;” the contents are categorized as either “easy” or “difficult.” Therefore, it is essential for this study to build a prototype e-learning website on which our research purpose can be realized and tested effectively with proper avatar types and e-learning contents. For this purpose, we built a prototype e-learning website, in which avatars are invited from currently working avatar instructors used in real-world e-learning websites, and e-learning contents are adapted from real-world contents about Java programming topic, which have been proved to have shown high quality and reliability. Our research method includes questionnaire survey by inviting a number of valid respondents comprised of office workers who are believed to have high demands for the e-learning contents as well as those who have previous experience with avatar instructors. Respondents were given one of the four e-learning experiment conditions (2 avatar types x 2 contents types) on a random basis. Each experimental e-learning condition is framed to have the same quality but different avatar type and content complexity. Then the respondents are asked to fill out the survey form which has questions about avatar trust, contents trust, personal relationships with avatar, and learning behavior, among others. Regarding the constructs used in research model, we based them rigorously on previous studies. For example, we used six constructs such as behavior to give information (BGI), behavior to obtain information (BOI), need for inclusion wanted, need for control wanted, contents trust, and avatar trust. To measure them, 7-Likert scales were used in the questionnaire. E-learning performance was measured indirectly through two constructs such as BGI and BOI. Six constructs used in the research model were adopted and revised from the FIRO-B model suggested by Schutz. Empirical results are as follows: First, professional avatars are more effective for difficult contents, while attractive avatars were not as effective for easy contents. Second, our study results ascertained that avatar trust transfers to contents trust regardless of avatar types and contents complexity.

Researchers have been continuously interested in the adoption of information technology (IT) since it is of great importance to the information systems success and it is also an important stage to the success. Adoption alone, however, does not ensure information systems success because it does not necessarily lead to achieving organizational or individual objectives. When an organization or an individual decide to adopt certain information technologies, they have objectives to accomplish by using those technologies. Adoption itself is not the ultimate goal. The period after adoption is when users continue to use IT and intended objectives can be accomplished. Therefore, continued IT use in the post-adoption period accounts more for the accomplishment of the objectives and thus information systems success. Previous studies also suggest that continued IT use in the post-adoption period is one of the important factors to improve long-term productivity. Despite the importance there are few empirical studies focusing on the user behavior of continued IT use in the post-adoption period. User behavior in the post-adoption period is different from that in the pre-adoption period. According to the technology acceptance model, which explains well about the IT adoption, users decide to adopt IT assessing the usefulness and the ease of use. After adoption, users are exposed to new experiences and they shape new beliefs different from the thoughts they had before. Users come to make decisions based on their experiences of IT use whether they will continue to use it or not. Most theories about the user behaviors in the pre-adoption period are limited in describing them after adoption since they do not consider user's experiences of using the adopted IT and the beliefs formed by those experiences. Therefore, in this study, we explore user's experiences and beliefs in the post-adoption period and examine how they affect user's intention to continue to use IT. Through deep literature reviews on the construction of subjective beliefs by experiences, we draw three meaningful constructs which theoretically have great impacts on the continued use of IT: perceived habit, confirmation, and computer self-efficacy. Then, we examine the role of the subjective beliefs on the cognitive/affective attitudes and intention to continue to use that IT. We set up a research model and conducted survey research. Since IT use implies interactions among a user, IT, and a task, we carefully selected the sample of users using same/similar IT to perform same/similar tasks, to exclude unwanted influences of other factors than subjective beliefs on the IT use. We also considered that the sample of users were able to make decisions to continue to use IT volitionally or at least quasi-volitionally. For each construct, we used measurement items recognized for reliability and widely used in the previous research. We slightly modified some items proper to the research context and a pilot test was carried out for forty users of a portal service in a university. We performed a full-scale survey after verifying the reliability of the measurement. The results show that the intention to continue to use IT is strongly influenced by cognitive/affective attitudes, perceived habits, and computer self-efficacy. Confirmation affects the intention to continue indirectly through cognitive/affective attitudes. All the constructs representing the subjective beliefs built by the experiences of IT use have direct and/or indirect impacts on the intention of users. The results also show that the attitudes in the post-adoption period are formed, at least partly, by the experiences of IT use and newly shaped beliefs after adoption. The findings suggest that subjective beliefs built by the experiences have deep impacts on the continued use. The results of the study signify that while experiencing IT in the post-adoption period users form new beliefs, attitudes, and intentions which may be different from those of the pre-adoption period. The results of this study partly demonstrate that the beliefs shaped by the behaviors, those are the experiences of IT use, influence users' attitudes and intention. The results also suggest that behaviors (experiences) also change attitudes while attitudes shape behaviors. If we combine the findings of this study with the results of the previous research on IT adoption, we can propose a cycle of IT adoption and use where behavior shapes attitude, the attitude forms new behavior, and that behavior shapes new attitude. Different from the previous research, the study focused on the user experience after IT adoption and empirically demonstrated the strong influence of the subjective beliefs formed in the post-adoption period on the continued use. This partly confirms the differences between attitudes in the pre-adoption and in the post-adoption period. Users continuously change their attitudes and intentions while experiencing (using) IT. Therefore, to make users adopt IT and to make them use IT after adoption is a different problem. To encourage users to use IT after adoption, experiential variables such as perceived habit, confirmation, and computer self-efficacy should be managed properly.

Digital learning platforms enable global knowledge sharing, yet cultural and linguistic diversity presents ongoing engagement challenges. This study examines how language and cultural diversity influence learner engagement and academic performance in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Drawing on cognitive dissonance and adaptive learning theories, we investigate whether learners who initially encounter cultural or linguistic barriers ultimately achieve superior outcomes. We analyze observational data from a 10-week edX course on baseball analytics, chosen due to the varying cultural familiarity with baseball. Results indicate that while in-group learners (English speakers from countries where baseball is culturally familiar) initially exhibit higher engagement and performance, persistent out-group learners demonstrate deeper social engagement, increased forum persistence, and superior long-term academic performance. Their sustained engagement significantly improves the discussions quality, benefiting other learners in the course. These findings contribute to cognitive dissonance theory by showing that initial discomfort can improve learners’ cognitive engagement and learning outcomes. From a practical perspective, this study provides managerial implications for learner support, adaptive assessment design, and diversity management in MOOC setting.

One of the emerging trends in the marketing field is digital video marketing. Online videos offer rich content typically containing more information than any other type of content (e.g., audible or textual content). Accordingly, previous researchers have examined factors influencing videos’ popularity. However, few studies have examined what causes a video to remain popular. Some videos achieve continuous, ongoing popularity, while others fade out quickly. For practitioners, videos at the recommendation slots may serve as strong communication channels, as many potential consumers are exposed to such videos. So,this study will provide practitioners important advice regarding how to choose videos that will survive as long-lasting favorites, allowing them to advertise in a cost-effective manner. Using deep learning techniques, this study extracts text from videos and measured the videos’ tones, including factual and emotional tones. Additionally, we measure the aesthetic score by analyzing the thumbnail images in the data. We then empirically show that the cognitive features of a video, such as the tone of a message and the aesthetic assessment of a thumbnail image, play an important role in determining videos’ long-term popularity. We believe that this is the first study of its kind to examine new factors that aid in ensuring a video remains popular using both deep learning and econometric methodologies.