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Reward-based crowdfunding is rapidly shaping up to be a revolutionary avenue for companies, especially start-ups, to broadcast their businesses and solicit capital through digital platforms. The platformized micro-investment mechanism in crowdfunding creates an unprecedented digital market that ensures a more fluid and granular distribution of financial resources. The Information Systems (IS) community has endeavored to shed light on this growing market by studying the decisive factors that motivate funders’ contributions and lead to crowdfunding success. Yet, despite its risky nature, no study thus far systematically investigates how risk perceptions emerge and impact funders’ investment behavior in reward-based crowdfunding and what companies can do to address funders’ risk concerns. To bridge these gaps, this thesis synthesizes contemporary knowledge on the contextual characteristics of crowdfunding and risks around diverse transactional environments to arrive at a typology of the risks encountered by funders when participating in reward-based crowdfunding. Drawing on the indispensable link between trust and risk, a holistic research model is constructed to: (1) postulate the impact of funders’ risk perceptions on their willingness to invest using a reward-based crowdfunding platform, (2) discern how different types of crowdfunding risks can be mitigated by enhancing the assessability of fundraiser’s trustworthiness, and (3) explore the optimum trust-building mechanisms that can facilitate funders’ assessments of fundraiser’s trustworthiness. Three experimental studies are conducted to validate the advanced research model empirically. The findings from the three studies yield theoretical insights on crowdfunding risks and mechanisms to diminish funders’ risk perceptions via trust-building. The results also yield actionable design principles that platform providers can adopt to help funders assess risk and improve their financing experience in this emerging market

Virtual worlds, as the computer-based simulated environments incorporating various representations of real-world elements, have great potential to not only transform the structures and operation modes of various industries but also change the way people work, do business, learn, play, and communicate. However, the existing sharp distinctions between virtual worlds and the real world also bring critical challenges. To address these challenges, the concept of telepresence—the user’s feeling of ‘being there’ in the virtual environments—is adopted as it is considered a direct and essential consequence of a virtual world’s reality. To cultivate this feeling, it is essential to understand what factors can lead to telepresence. However, some literature gaps on telepresence antecedents impede the understanding of telepresence antecedents and affect the adoption of the telepresence construct in the design of virtual worlds. To address these issues, this study explores the concept of telepresence in the context of virtual worlds. Specifically, by adopting means-end chain (MEC) theory, the study aims to investigate the antecedents of telepresence; to reveal the inter-relationships among these antecedents by building a hierarchical structure; and to develop an innovative approach for user segmentation to understand in-depth individual differences in perceiving telepresence. To achieve these objectives, the laddering interview technique was adopted to collect qualitative data from 25 participants. Analysis of the data identified 21 antecedents of telepresence. Based on their inter-relationships, a hierarchical structure was developed to capture the process of cultivating telepresence. Moreover, three types of users with distinctive paths leading to telepresence were classified. This study contributes to both the virtual world research and the telepresence literature and develops a new and meaningful user segmentation method. Finally, this study provides sufficient information an

Online group buying, as a new form of e-commerce, is one of the most innovative e-commerce business models. This model offers great opportunities for e-marketers, but also brings new challenges. In the last four years, more than 5000 online group buying vendors in China have gone out of business. Existing literature suggests that online group buying is distinctive from online shopping, and consumers are motivated to use online group buying to enjoy different benefits. As little research has been conducted on understanding consumers in this context, group buying websites have few guidelines to follow to improve competitiveness.This thesis addresses this challenge by exploring the hierarchical motivations underlying consumers’ online group buying behaviour and the development of consumer typologies from a new perspective. Specifically, utilising a Uses and Gratifications (U&G) approach and Means-End Chain (MEC) theory perspective, this study aims not only to explore the content of online group buyers’ motivations, but also uncover the inter-relationships among these motivations. Moreover, it aims to introduce a new method to segment consumer, based on benefit-level motivations, which can provide more accurate consumer typologies.To reach these objectives the laddering interview technique was used to collect data from 58 online group buyers in China. A context-specific hierarchical motive model was developed, based on the 35 motivations identified, which not only indicated consumer value/goal fulfilment paths, but also illustrated the relative importance of different paths. Moreover, three typologies of group buyers with distinct value/goal fulfilment paths were identified, fundamentally different from existing shopper typologies in the e-commerce context.As a timely topic using a novel approach to explore consumer online group buying motivations, this study adds to the online group buying literature, introduces a new segmentation approach that overcomes the limitation

In the information systems (IS) discipline, there has been a continued interest in comprehending and explaining how the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems instigate organisational change processes and bring about desirable outcomes. Extensive literature on ERP implementation identifies numerous factors that affect organisational changes, including staff training, top management support and involvement, active user participation, external knowledge acquisition, knowledge co-creation and sharing, staff learning and many more. Despite the maturing of ERP technologies and a wealth of knowledge available on ERP implementation, organisations continue to experience considerable difficulties and rarely achieve desired outcomes. The key challenge for an organisation implementing an ERP system, emphasised in the literature, is to understand and enact new business processes inscribed in ERP and thus undergo a profound organisational change. The thesis addresses this challenge by approaching ERP implementation as an organisational learning process. When an organisation is planning and configuring ERP and then implementing it in its specific business processes, all its actors have to learn, individually and collectively, and engage in instigating change in practice. To conceptualise ERP implementation as an organisational learning process, the thesis builds from two theories of learning: community of practice (CoP) theory that draws attention to situated learning in practice and a theory of single- and double-loop learning by individuals, groups and an organisation as a whole. Within such a theoretical foundation, the thesis examines the following research questions: How does organisational learning emerge and assist the actors in an ERP implementation? How do CoPs facilitate organisational learning during an ERP implementation?To answer these questions, a qualitative case study was conducted in an information technology (IT) services company in Austral

Due to the increased adoption of the Internet over the last decade, business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce has become a popular medium for consumers to purchase products or services. However, despite a growth in e-commerce, it is difficult to succeed in online businesses because customers can easily switch between competitors and it is difficult to gain consumers' trust online. Trust is a complex and multifaceted issue that must be addressed from multiple angles. Previous research on trust has attempted to understand consumers' attitudes, intentions, and behaviours that are related to trust in online shopping. However, few studies have provided a comprehensive understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of the trust construct such as the impacts of different trust dimensions on e-loyalty, inter-relationships among trust dimensions, and antecedents of different trust dimensions. The objective of this research is to fill the gaps by investigating the factors that affect different types of trust, the relationships among different types of trust and the importance of the trust issues in forming e-loyalty in the online environment. Led by the literature, a research model was proposed and hypotheses were developed to explore the answers to the research questions. Data was collected through a web-based survey in Chinese markets and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to analyse the data. Empirical results showed that all three dimensions of trust had impacts on e-loyalty. Dispositional trust had an impact on institutional trust, and institutional trust had an impact on interpersonal trust. Among the factors that influence interpersonal trust, store reputation and information quality not only had significantly impacts on interpersonal trust, but also mediated the relationships between other antecedents and interpersonal trust. This research contributes to the body of knowledge on trust by exploring the nature of trust with a multi