Khaled Hassanein

The role of social presence in establishing loyalty in e-Service environments

Compared to offline shopping, the online shopping experience may be viewed as lacking human warmth and sociability as it is more impersonal, anonymous, automated and generally devoid of face-to-face interactions. Thus, understanding how to create customer loyalty in online environments (e-Loyalty) is a complex process. In this paper a model for e-Loyalty is proposed and used to examine how varied conditions of social presence in a B2C e-Services context influence e-Loyalty and its antecedents of perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment. This model is examined through an empirical study involving 185 subjects using structural equation modeling techniques. Further analysis is conducted to reveal gender differences concerning hedonic elements in the model on e-Loyalty.

Manipulating perceived social presence through the web interface and its impact on attitude towards online shopping

Electronic commerce typically lacks human warmth and sociability, since it is more impersonal, anonymous and automated than traditional face-to-face commerce. This paper explores how human warmth and sociability can be integrated through the web interface to positively impact consumer attitudes towards online shopping. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate the impact of various levels of socially rich text and picture design elements on the perception of online social presence and its subsequent effect on antecedents of attitudes towards websites. Higher levels of perceived social presence are shown to positively impact the perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment of shopping websites, leading to more favourable consumer attitudes. Implications of these finding for practitioners and future research are outlined.

Review: Computer use by older adults: A multi-disciplinary review

As the populations of most of the worlds developed nations experience an increase in average age, a similar trend is being observed in the population of computer and Internet users. In many cases, older adults are the fastest growing computer and Internet user group in both personal and workplace contexts. However, the needs and concerns of older adults as computer users differ from those of younger users as a result of the natural changes associated with the aging process. Much research has been conducted in a variety of fields in order to understand how these changes experienced by older adults impact their use of computers and the Internet. This article reviews this existing research and provides a holistic view of the field. Since the study of computer use by older adults is a multi-disciplinary topic by nature, we provide a synthesis of the findings across these many disciplines, and attempt to highlight any gaps that exist. We use Social Cognitive Theory as a lens to view and organize the literature, as well as illustrate means through which computer use by this user group can be encouraged. Finally, suggestions for future research are proposed, and implications for research and practice are discussed.

The Impact of Infusing Social Presence in the Web Interface: An Investigation Across Product Types

Many on-line stores have little emotional or social appeal and lack human warmth. For some products, such as apparel, increasing a firms social presence through socially rich descriptions and pictures will have a positive impact on attitudinal antecedents to purchase. The appropriateness and need for human warmth and sociability differ across types of products or services, however. An empirical investigation compared apparel (a product for which consumers seek fun and entertaining shopping experiences) and headphones (a product for which consumers primarily seek detailed product information). Unlike apparel, higher levels of social presence on Web sites selling headphones did not have a positive effect on attitudinal antecedents. The implications of these findings are discussed, and subjects for future research are outlined.

The impact of age on website usability

An age-related website usability model is proposed and validated.Age leads to declining levels spatial ability and mental model accuracy.Age impacts website usability through diminishing cognitive skills.Disorientation reveals both expected and surprising findings.Implications of different conceptualizations of the age construct are discussed. As the general and working populations age in most developed nations, the study of website usability for older adults is becoming increasingly relevant. Website usability is concerned with both utilitarian (i.e. functional) and hedonic (i.e. pleasure-related) aspects. A new website usability model is proposed that considers the effects of age on website usability through cognitive antecedents that are most relevant to age-related effects. Specifically, spatial ability is the declining cognitive skill of particular interest in this research. A laboratory experiment was conducted where younger and older participants interacted with an experimental website. The results suggest that age has a pronounced impact on performance as a mediated effect through declining levels spatial ability and mental model accuracy as well as through a direct effect suggesting the presence of other objective and subjective changes associated with aging that could impact performance. Perceived disorientation was also examined within the proposed website usability model, revealing both expected and surprising findings.

Debiasing investors with decision support systems: An experimental investigation

This research presents evidence that decision support systems can play an important role in debiasing behaviorally-challenged investors. An empirical study involving 119 participants provides strong evidence for the existence of cognitive biases in investment decision making and demonstrates the effectiveness of decision aids in lowering the negative impact of such biases on the ability of investors to make sound investment decisions. Additionally, such decision aids are shown to be more valuable in decision environments where the bias level is likely to be higher.

A cross-cultural comparison of the impact of Social Presence on website trust, usefulness and enjoyment

Previous studies have shown that website design elements (such as text and pictures) can be manipulated to increase the perception of Social Presence (SP) among online consumers, which can then impact trust, usefulness and enjoyment. This paper seeks to determine if the impacts of infusing SP in websites is culture specific or universal. We were able to demonstrate similar results with Chinese online consumers compared to Canadian online customers in terms of usefulness and enjoyment, but not for trust. The paper concludes with a discussion of these results outlining implications for practitioners and directions for future research.

E-health: applying business process reengineering principles to healthcare in Canada

Healthcare in Canada is facing many problems. The most publicised symptoms are excessive waiting times for patients, lack of access, high cost of delivery and medical errors. e-Health has been introduced as a potential solution for such problems. This research will explore the area of e-health and the technologies as well as the concepts that are included under its large umbrella. Bearing in mind that e-health is more than a set of technological applications, a business process reengineering (BPR) framework will be used to examine the application of particular BPR principles to address specific problems that are plaguing the Canadian healthcare system. The framework identifies the e-health technologies and processes that could best support the effective application of these BPR principles within a healthcare environment, as well as the key barriers impeding their implementation.

Online information quality and consumer satisfaction

A meta-analysis is conducted of the relation between online IQ and satisfaction.Contextual moderators for the online IQ and satisfaction relation are explored.Website type moderates the relation between online IQ and satisfaction.IQ categories used moderate the relation between online IQ and satisfaction.Respondent characteristics do not moderate the online IQ and satisfaction relation. A meta-analysis involving 42 articles was performed to study the existence of potential contextual moderators of the relationship between information quality (IQ) and consumer satisfaction in the online environment. A moderator analysis involving website type (retail or e-services), sample characteristics (respondent type and respondent origin) and the IQ categories used (representational and non-representational) in articles revealed that whereas website type and IQ categories moderate the relationship between perceived online IQ and consumer satisfaction, sample characteristics do not. Implications of the results for researchers and practitioners and directions of future research are presented.

An Intelligent Expert Systems' Approach to Layout Decision Analysis and Design under Uncertainty

This chapter describes an intelligent soft computing based approach to layout decision analysis and design. The solution methodology involves the use of heuristics, metaheuristics, human intuition as well as soft computing tools like artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, and expert systems. The research framework and prototype contribute to the field of intelligent decision making in layout analysis and design by enabling explicit representation of experts’ knowledge, formal modeling of fuzzy user preferences, and swift generation/manipulation of superior layout alternatives to facilitate the cognitive, ergonomic, and economic efficiency of layout designers.