Satisfaction with information services among individuals in China’s urban communities during the COVID-19 pandemic
ISSN: 0264-0473
Article publication date: 14 July 2023
Issue publication date: 24 July 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study individuals’ information service satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in China’s urban communities.
Design/methodology/approach
The researchers analyse people’s uncertainties during the pandemic and argue that uncertainties caused by the lockdown can negatively affect people. By reducing people’s uncertainty during the pandemic, community staff members can improve individuals’ information service satisfaction and social order. This study constructs a conceptual model that includes key transparency and self-disclosure constructs and their relationships that can contribute to the trust and satisfaction of the community information service phenomenon. The researchers collected 489 responses to test their hypothesis from an online survey of Chinese residents in areas where the strict lockdown policy was implemented.
Findings
The empirical results show that policy and goods information transparency significantly affect information service satisfaction in a positive way, with goods information transparency having the highest impact. Second, self-disclosure of community staff members is also an effective way to increase information service satisfaction. Finally, trust plays a mediating role in the influence of information transparency and self-disclosure on information service satisfaction.
Originality/value
This paper innovatively uses uncertainty reduction theory to examine the effects of information transparency and self-disclosure on satisfaction with community information services. It expands the research in the field of information service satisfaction and extends the scope of the research subjects of self-disclosure.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 20&ZD125].
Declaration of interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
CRediT authorship contribution statement: Wang Shen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Validation, Resources, Investigation, Writing – review and editing, Supervision. Junyao Wang: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft. Yuming He: Writing – review and editing.
Citation
Shen, W., Wang, J., Feng, X. and He, Y. (2023), "Satisfaction with information services among individuals in China’s urban communities during the COVID-19 pandemic", The Electronic Library, Vol. 41 No. 4, pp. 474-502. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-02-2023-0045
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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