Aslib Journal of Information Management

Publisher:: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 2050-3806

Issue Number

No. 77-1, October - October - September - September - September - September - September - August - August 2023

Latest documents

Practices for enhancing research visibility, citations and impact: review of literature
Letter to the editor: Should stricter regulations be set for the use or analysis of Twitter (and other social media) in academic publishing?
Assessing the informational credibility of conspiracy theories: online discussion about the Nord Stream damage
Purpose: To elaborate the picture of credibility assessment by examining how participants of online discussion evaluate the informational credibility of conspiracy theories. Design/methodology/approach: Descriptive quantitative analysis and qualitative content analysis of 2,663 posts submitted to seven Reddit threads discussing a conspiracy operation, that is, the damage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. It was examined how the participants of online discussion assess the credibility of information constitutive of conspiracy theories speculating about (1) suspected actors responsible for the damage, (2) their motives and (3) the ways in which the damage was made. The credibility assessments focussed on diverse sources offering information about the above three factors. Findings: The participants assessed the credibility of information by drawing on four main criteria: plausibility of arguments, honesty in argumentation, similarity to one's beliefs and provision of evidence. Most assessments were negative and indicated doubt about the informational believability of conspiracy theories about the damage. Of the information sources referred to in the discussion, the posts submitted by fellow participants, television programmes and statements provided by governmental organizations were judged most critically, due to implausible argumentation and advocacy of biased views. Research limitations/implications: As the study focuses on a sample of posts dealing with conspiracy theories about a particular event, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the informational credibility conspiracy narratives. Originality/value: The study pioneers by providing an in-depth analysis of the nature of credibility assessments by focussing on information constitutive of conspiracy theories.
Technology assisted research assessment: algorithmic bias and transparency issues
Purpose: Technology is sometimes used to support assessments of academic research in the form of automatically generated bibliometrics for reviewers to consult during their evaluations or by replacing some or all human judgements. With artificial intelligence (AI), there is increasing scope to use technology to assist research assessment processes in new ways. Since transparency and fairness are widely considered important for research assessment and AI introduces new issues, this review investigates their implications. Design/methodology/approach: This article reviews and briefly summarises transparency and fairness concerns in general terms and through the issues that they raise for various types of Technology Assisted Research Assessment (TARA). Findings: Whilst TARA can have varying levels of problems with both transparency and bias, in most contexts it is unclear whether it worsens the transparency and bias problems that are inherent in peer review. Originality/value: This is the first analysis that focuses on algorithmic bias and transparency issues for technology assisted research assessment.
Social contagion of online physician choice: the infection and immunity mechanism
Purpose: In the digital age, the spread of online behavior and real-world information leads to social contagion. This study aims to investigate the contagion phenomenon of online physician choice and then discuss its potential influence on the sub-specialization process in the healthcare service industry. In specific, this study aims to propose the basic mechanism of infection and immunity as follows – exposure to antigen may lead to an immune response, and the success of the immune response may depend on the provision of appropriate immune signaling. Design/methodology/approach: Data collected from haodf.com including 4 disease types and 247 physicians from 2008 to 2015 were used to test the proposed hypotheses. Panel vector autoregression method was utilized to analyze the panel data. Findings: The obtained result shows that social contagion of physician choice over disease type is salient on e-consultation platforms, indicating that physicians associated with/on haodf.com are concentrating on an even narrower type of disease. Disclosing more simple signals (physician history orders) results in more disease concentration for that physician in the future. In contrast, disclosing more detailed signals (physician-contributed knowledge or physician reviews) leads to less disease concentration. Originality/value: This finding implies that physician-contributed knowledge and physician reviews may act as immune signal which will tend to trigger a success immune response. This study not only suggests managers should be careful about the double-edged sword effect of online physician choice contagion but also provides the useful approaches to promote or restrain such a contagion in a flexible way.
Determining multi-dimensional motivations driving e-WOM intention and purchase intention on WeChat: the significant role of active participation
Purpose: Building upon uses and gratifications (UG) theory and social exchange theory, the current study establishes a theoretical model to examine the underlying relationship between customer motivations, active participation and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) and purchase intentions on WeChat. Design/methodology/approach: The data were gathered in a web-based survey of 301 WeChat users in mainland China. To empirically verify the proposed hypotheses, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed using online data. Findings: Path analysis outcomes demonstrate that functional, hedonic and social motivations positively affect WeChat users' active participation. In addition, active participation significantly influences e-WOM intention while showing no correlation with purchase intention. Research limitations/implications: Theoretically, this article can enrich the extant system of relevant theories and offer a fresh perspective for further research on the generation of consumers' e-WOM intention and purchase intention in the WeChat context. Practically, the research outcomes provide insight for companies on how to motivate customers to participate in online activities, which subsequently improve WeChat users' willingness in conducting e-WOM communication and making purchase decisions. Originality/value: Although mobile social media could serve as an influential marketing vehicle for individuals' engagement in social and commercial activities in today's mobile-matured environment, the substantial impact of active engagement on the relationship between customer motivation and purchase intention remains insufficiently explored. The outcomes not only contribute to the current body of knowledge, but also offer several managerial guidance for companies that pay attention to mobile social media marketing in a contemporary mobile media-saturated society.
Ability first or opportunity first in the m-health era? A hybrid SEM-ANN approach
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to propose and test a model to explain users’ intention to adopt m-health devices and divide the importance of antecedents for users to adopt m-health devices based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework. Design/methodology/approach: This research conducted an online survey with m-health app users and collected 562 valid responses. A hybrid SEM-ANN approach was employed to evaluate the research model and hypotheses. Findings: The results show that motivation (M), opportunity (O), and ability (A) affect users’ flow experience and loyalty and further affect their adoption intention of m-health technology. Opportunity plays a more critical role in m-health adoption intention than ability. Originality/value: This study comprehensively examined the factors that affect users’ deep engagement and m-health adoption from the perspective of MOA. It used the hybrid SEM-ANN method to divide the critical role of motivation, opportunity and ability, providing a new analysis approach for studying information technology (IT) behavior.
Research on the measurement of academic activeness of scholars in academic conferences
Purpose: Academic conferences play a crucial role in fostering scholarly exchanges and discussions among core members, thereby shaping the core performance of these events. Understanding the contributions of scholars in academic conferences is essential for advancing the goals and development of such events. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned idea. Design/methodology/approach: This paper proposes a comprehensive measurement method for measuring scholars' academic activeness in academic conferences. Based on the essence of academic activeness, a measurement model is constructed, comprising the breadth of academic activeness using the RFM model and the depth of academic activeness using the ATM model. Additionally, effective categories of scholars are derived from the model, facilitating the identification of valuable scholars in academic conferences. Findings: Empirical evidence from ASIS&T conference records over the past 20 years demonstrates that the proposed measurement indicators have better coverage compared to traditional evaluation indicators, thus complementing existing scholar evaluation indictators. Furthermore, the academic activeness measurement model presented in this paper exhibits good efficacy in identifying important value and active scholars. Originality/value: This paper pays attention to the activeness of scholars in academic conferences. It broadens the evaluation of academic conferences and scholars and supplements the evaluation indicators of academic influence.
Influencing factors of social media addiction: a systematic review
Purpose: As an unhealthy dependence on social media platforms, social media addiction (SMA) has become increasingly commonplace in the digital era. The purpose of this paper is to provide a general overview of SMA research and develop a theoretical model that explains how different types of factors contribute to SMA. Design/methodology/approach: Considering the nascent nature of this research area, this study conducted a systematic review to synthesize the burgeoning literature examining influencing factors of SMA. Based on a comprehensive literature search and screening process, 84 articles were included in the final sample. Findings: Analyses showed that antecedents of SMA can be classified into three conceptual levels: individual, environmental and platform. The authors further proposed a theoretical framework to explain the underlying mechanisms behind the relationships amongst different types of variables. Originality/value: The contributions of this review are two-fold. First, it used a systematic and rigorous approach to summarize the empirical landscape of SMA research, providing theoretical insights and future research directions in this area. Second, the findings could help social media service providers and health professionals propose relevant intervention strategies to mitigate SMA.
“Transformation or not?” the effect of broadcasters' role orientation transformation on their direct income
Purpose: In the actual livestreaming background, to obtain more income, some broadcasters will transform their original single role orientation into mixed one. This research study aims to conduct an empirical study on the influence of the broadcasters' role orientation transformation on the viewers' tipping behavior. Design/methodology/approach: The authors collect data from Kuai, a leading online live streaming service provider in China. The dataset includes 175,701 live streaming data from 971 broadcasters in 7 months. To avoid unobservable factors, the authors adopt two difference-in-differences (DID) models to estimate the effect of two kinds of broadcaster's role orientation transformation on the broadcaster’s direct income separately. And the authors use the Heckman-type correction to solve broadcasters’ self-selected problem. Findings: The authors evaluated that there is a U-shape relationship between the broadcasters' role orientation transformation and their direct income. The broadcasters' direct income experienced a sharp decline for a short period of time after transformation and followed by a rise after a period of adaptation. And for broadcasters with different genders and amounts of fans, the influence degree of role orientation transformation is various. Originality/value: This paper provides a fresh usage of the regulatory engagement theory in the brand new information communication technology. And it also explores the boundary effect of the participating object's self-factors in the regulatory engagement theory. Besides, this paper expands the research of livestreaming into natural background. Such results also provide operable suggestions for the livestream platform, the broadcaster himself and the enterprises who want to employ some broadcasters to recommend their products.