Search

PurposeEven though social media (SM) has been explored in-depth, its role remains unclear regarding short- and long-term preventive attitudes in global health emergencies. To fill this gap, the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework aims to clarify the social media exposure mission in acknowledging risk perception and triggering preventive attitudes and behaviors toward COVID-19 and general vaccination.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted an explanatory-predictive study on 480 Romanian students, using partial least squares structural equation modeling, and performed model evaluation, multi-group, model selection, and importance-performance map analyses.FindingsThe study provides insights in understanding significant relationships and drivers explaining and predicting attitudes towards vaccines. The main relationships are between fear and risk perception; risk and preventive attitudes and behaviors; and vaccination degree and attitudes to vaccines. The most important factor is the vaccination degree and media exposure is the most performant.Practical implicationsDeveloping and applying regulations and communication strategies for quality mass information may positively increase attitudes toward vaccines by indirectly enforcing the main drivers.Social implicationsOrganizations, authorities, and opinion leaders must have a coherent supportive presence in media.Originality/valueThis study filled the literature gap by building a generic theoretical and empirical proven framework that investigates the mediated effect towards vaccines of all media types by COVID-19 experience and vaccination degree.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0621

PurposeThe current study aims to empirically analyze the influence of different information sources, together with the persuasiveness of recommender systems (RSs) on the consumer’s purchase intention (PI). It also expands the research on RSs from the point of view of consumer behavior and psychology, considering perceived usefulness and relevance. In addition, it analyzes how different types of personalized recommendations, along with non-personalized ones, influence PI.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed model has been validated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), based on the data collected from 597 online shoppers.FindingsThis study proves that both information search and RSs influence PI, being complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Recommender systems’ findings indicate that the PI is primarily influenced by the perceived relevance of RSs, the information provided by manufacturers and reviews. Moreover, only the influence of the perceived usefulness of personalized recommendations strongly affects PI. Conversely, non-personalized recommendations do not affect PI.Practical implicationsDevelopers should focus on increasing the perceived usefulness and relevance of RSs. Thus, they could adopt the hybridization of RSs with the aggregation of both personal shopping behavior and social network contacts. It should integrate information signals from multiple sources to include sentiment extracted from reviews or links to the manufacturer’s page. Furthermore, the recommendation of discounted products must be only for products preferred by customers, because only these influence the PI.Originality/valueThis research provides a structural model that examines together, for the first time, the influence on the PI of the main RSs and sources of information.

PurposeThis paper investigates if the existing degree of students' acceptance and use of mobile or m-learning may face the online shift determined by SARS-CoV-2. Based on the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), a new comprehensive model, SD-UTAUT (social distancing-UTAUT), is developed to better understand relationships between the original constructs, plus personal innovativeness (PI) and information quality (IQ). It identifies the key factors affecting behavioral intention (BI) and use by examining the influence of revaluated hedonic motivation (HM) and learning value (LV) importance as mediators.Design/methodology/approachThe paper opted for an exploratory study involving 311 learners, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsSD-UTAUT can be a new m-learning model in higher education. It has high predictive power and confirmed 15 out of 16 hypotheses. The most powerful relationship is between performance expectancy (PE) and HM. IQ affected LV the most, since HM the behavioral use (BU). HM impacts the use behavior (UB) more than LV, but habit (HT) affects it the most.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the pandemic context, output may lack generalizability and reproducibility.Practical implicationsTo improve usage, staff must provide better support, course creators emphasize the objectives and competencies and developers integrate innovation. The joy and pleasure of m-learning use may stimulate the LV through interesting and interactive content, like incorporating gamification.Originality/valueThe model set-up and circumstances are previously unseen. SD-UTAUT confirms ten new hypotheses and introduces the student's grade point average (GPA) as a moderator.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0017