Consumer Decision Sciences in Modern Online Platforms.

详细信息   

• 作者：Ma ; Xiao (Sean).
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2014
• 毕业院校：The University of Wisconsin
• Department：usiness.
• ISBN：9781303898426
• CBH：3620134
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：1285869
• Pages：136

文摘

Advancements in computing and information technologies have offered ample opportunities for designing innovative online platforms. This dissertation documents three independent essays to examine several examples of modern online platforms,and more important,to examine consumer behavior and decision-making upon using these platforms. Essay 1 conceptualizes a model for the generation process of online product reviews and validates it using a huge web-crawled dataset collected from an online social medium. Essay 2 builds and empirically tests a model for how consumers use an online gambling service,based on an objective usage database of more than 40,000 Internet gamblers. Essay 3 invents an instantaneous decision model of bidding behavior for users of a new form of popular online auctions,and empirically estimates it using archival data of thousands of such users. Several original discoveries are made. First,the extent that online product reviews influence consumers varies significantly by the characteristics of the consumers and how they process information. Novice consumers,males,those who are geographically constrained or socially isolated,and in those times when they are less actively or less thoughtfully processing information,are more susceptible to the public opinions about a product. Second,online gambling decisions are significantly influenced by cumulative gambling outcomes,recent gambling outcomes,and previous gambling behavior. Third,contrary to another study of online pay-to-bid auction that relied on aggregate data,here I found that the majority of consumers is risk averse,and such risk aversion is even more pronounced following the introduction of new bidding policies. Altogether,these findings provide insights for both academics and practices to better understand consumer behavior and decision-making,and to improve the design of such and similar online platforms. More contextualized theories,methods,contributions,as well as limitations and opportunities for future research,are elaborated in each of the following essays.