Gee-Woo Bock

Comparing the effects of website quality on customer initial purchase and continued purchase at e-commerce websites

To succeed in the highly competitive e-commerce environment, it is vital to understand the impact of website quality in enhancing customer conversion and retention. Although numerous contingent website attributes have been identified in the extant website quality studies, there is no unified framework to classify these attributes and no comparison done between customer conversion and retention according to the different website quality attributes and their varying impact. This study adopts the model of Information Systems (IS) success by DeLone and McLean to provide a parsimonious and unified view of website quality, and compares the impact of website quality on intention of initial purchase with that on intention of continued purchase. With the proposed framework, we seek to understand how a company can increase customer conversion and/or retention. Our findings demonstrate the strength of our framework in explaining the impact of website quality on intention to purchase on the Web, and that website quality constructs exert different impact on intention of initial purchase and intention of continued purchase. The results suggest that an online company should focus on system quality to increase customer conversion, and on service quality for customer retention.

The Effect of Social Context on the Success of Knowledge Repository Systems

Knowledge repository systems (KRSs) have gained popularity for enabling knowledge codification and reuse. This paper develops and tests a model of KRS success, including perceived KRS searchability, perceived KRS output quality, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction, and examines how three aspects of social context (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, and organizational trust) affect these dimensions of KRS success. Empirical results from a survey of 141 KRS users in China and Singapore indicate that perceived KRS output quality depends on KRS searchability and the social context, perceived usefulness depends on perceived KRS output quality, and user satisfaction depends on perceived KRS output quality and perceived KRS searchability. However, the study provides some surprises: perceived KRS searchability only indirectly (through perceived KRS output quality) affects perceived usefulness, and the social context directly affects only perceived KRS output quality and not perceived usefulness. Our results suggest a four-pronged approach toward enhancing knowledge contribution and reuse in organizations: 1) developing organizational trust; 2) facilitating intrinsic rewards for knowledge contribution, partly through organizational trust; 3) the exercise of caution in the use of extrinsic rewards; and 4) the design of a KRS with a high level of searchability.

Price Comparison and Price Dispersion: Products and Retailers at Different Internet Maturity Stages

The Internet can make markets more competitive, but whether this holds for on-line price levels and price dispersion is unclear, perhaps because the maturity, or level of development, of Internet markets has not been widely studied. This paper explores how the maturity of an Internet market affects on-line market pricing in relation to types of products and retailers. It analyzes the pricing differences between pure on-line retailers (e-tailers) and hybrid retailers (multichannel retailers) for three categories of products (books, CDs, digital cameras) in two countries with different levels of Internet maturity (China and the United States). The results show that (1) e-tailer price dispersion is lower in the United States than in China, (2) price levels in the two countries vary with product types, and (3) in both countries, e-tailers have lower price levels and price dispersion than hybrid retailers. These findings suggest that the maturation of Internet markets may lead to lower prices and price dispersion, but with variations dependent on type of product and retailer.

An Empirical Study on Measuring the Success of Knowledge Repository Systems

This paper proposes and empirically validates a Knowledge Repository Systems (KRS) Success Model. Based on Masons information influence theory, we developed a more comprehensive framework for KRS success measurement by combining DeLone and McLeans IS Success Model with Markuss knowledge reusability concept. The data were collected through a survey of 110 KRS users in China and Singapore. The empirical results demonstrate that KRS success should be measured at different stages of knowledge reuse as well as a series of influence on KRS users, and these KRS success dimensions are interrelated.

Comparing the Effects of Usability on Customer Conversion and Retention at E-Commerce Websites

To succeed in the highly competitive e-commerce environment, it is vital to understand what customers want in a website to enhance conversion and retention rates of websites. Numerous contingent usability attributes have been the result of past usability studies and there are no unified framework or model to classify these attributes. This study adopted the most prominent model of IS success to provide a parsimonious and unified view of usability. Past usability studies have also focused on measuring the outcomes of usability and neglected the relationship between the actual usability dimensions and the intention to purchase. When examining the relationship between usability and the intention of purchase, this study compares the impact of usability on conversion and retention. In the comparison between conversion and retention, the empirical results demonstrate that the system quality is more important for customer conversion whereas service quality is more important for customer retention.

Identifying different antecedents for closed vs open knowledge transfer

Facilitating employees’ knowledge transfer to colleagues is a critical, yet challenging task. This study suggests that an individual’s social networks and motivational factors facilitate knowledge transfer based on the social capital theory and the theory of collective action. More importantly, this study also proposes that the facilitating effects of social networks and motivational factors differ depending on the different modes of knowledge transfer, namely, the closed (one-to-one) and the open (one-to-many) modes. By analysing 325 survey responses of eight research and development groups from five firms with structural equation modelling, we found that network centrality and organizational reward were influential only on open knowledge transfer while expected reciprocity was influential only on closed knowledge transfer. On the other hand, average strength of ties and intrinsic motivational factors such as group identification and self-efficacy seemed to affect both types of knowledge transfer. Additionally, the facilitating effects of social networks were found to be partially mediated by motivational factors.

Understanding Overbidding Behavior in C2C Auctions: An Escalation Theory Perspective

With millions of online auctions per day, sites such as eBay have revolutionized how consumers buy and sell goods. Despite the benefits associated with online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) auctions, there can be drawbacks. Consumers who purchase goods in online auctions may get caught up in auction fever, causing them to engage in overbidding, and sometimes leading to what has been referred to as the winners curse. While several theoretical explanations have been proposed to explain overbidding behavior (OB), there has been little empirical work in this area. Drawing on escalation theory, this study develops and tests a model of the OB exhibited by individuals in online auction settings. Our model posits that certain escalation drivers such as sunk cost (SC), the completion effect (CE), and self-justification affect an individuals willingness to continue bidding (WCB) which, in turn, influences OB. Survey data collected from 250 online auction participants were used to test the model using partial least squares analysis. SC and CE were found to have significant impacts on OB that were either partially or fully mediated by WCB. We also found that competition intensity moderates the relationship between willingness to continue and OB such that when competition is more intense, the relationship becomes even stronger. The implications of these findings for both research and practice are discussed.

Understanding the effect of social networks on user behaviors in community-driven knowledge services

Given the prevalence of community-driven knowledge services (CKSs) such as Yahoo! Answers and Naver Knowledge In, it has become important to understand the effect of social networks on user behaviors in CKS environments. CKSs allow various relationships between askers and answerers as well as among answerers. This study classifies social ties in CKSs into three kinds of ties: answering ties, co-answering ties, and getting answers ties. This study examines the influence of the structural and relational attributes of social networks on the quality of answers at CKSs for answering ties, co-answering ties, and getting answers ties. Data collected from the top-100 heavy users of Yahoo! Answers and of Naver Knowledge In are used to test the research model. The analysis results show that the centrality of the answering ties significantly influences the quality of answers while the average strength of the answering ties has an insignificant effect on the quality of answers. Interestingly, both the centrality and average strength of the co-answering ties negatively affect the quality of answers. Moreover, the centrality and average strength of getting answers ties do not significantly influence the quality of answers.

Integrating ERP Systems in a Decentralized Company: A Case Study

Abstract System integration across regions is essential for global operations, especially in business-to business (B2B) transactions. Medical Device Corporation1 (MDC), a medical-device manufacturer, aims to implement an e-procurement system to increase efficiency in group purchasing transactions and to enhance customer service. However, the company needed to standardize work processes in its various regions and integrate disparate regional ERP systems prior to the implementation of an e-procurement system. To achieve this objective, MDC is currently conducting a two-phase system integration strategy. This study describes MDC’s system integration promotion strategy in the context of the unique features of the medical supply industry and an environment in which work processes vary enormously with distinct regional environmental characteristics.

Winner's regret in online C2C Auctions: an automatic thinking perspective

While human beings embody a unique ability for planned behaviour, they also often act automatically. In this study, we draw on the automatic thinking perspective as a meta‐theoretic lens to explain why online auction bidders succumb to both trait impulsiveness and sunk cost, ultimately leading them to experience winners regret. Based on a survey of 301 online auction participants, we demonstrate that both trait impulsiveness as an emotional trigger and sunk cost as a cognitive trigger promote winners regret. By grounding our research model in the automatic thinking view, we provide an alternative meta‐theoretical lens from which to view online bidder behaviour, thus bolstering our current understanding of winners regret. We also investigate the moderating effects of competition intensity on the relationships between the triggers of automatic thinking and winners regret. Our results show that both trait impulsiveness and sunk cost have significant impacts on winners regret. We also found that the relationship between these two triggers and winners regret is moderated by competition intensity.